Talk:Celts/Archive 6

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Locked?

Ahahahaah what kind Celtic bullshit is this? First of all in the [Celtic Nations] page it says "claimed" or "other claims" for most of the history about the Celtics. This important realization isn't once mentioned on this article about the "Celts." Everything is stated as fact, but of course this will never be corrected. Wikipedia is about having an opinion distributed to the masses. Almost propaganda like... How dumbasses are going to look at this page during St. Patrick's Day and feel like they've learned something, or found a self awareness? It looks like nobody put a "*" on the information age.

What made this agenda most obvious was that the Celts weren't some homogeneous people. Their greatest enemy was each others' clans. This myth about some Celtic utopia sounds similar to Hitler's Aryan myth.

Also the quotes by Roman scholars were taken out of context.

Cassius Dio's quote included an unnecessary and biased intro which is nothing more than that idiots opinion. It should not be including as a pretext to a historical author as it adds on to something which they had no part of in the first place. I simply don't have the time to go into every problem with this article, but hey that's Wikipedia. If this was only on paper, I wouldn't need toilet paper for weeks.

Another botched one was that of Diodorus Siculus. It was never once cited about the target sample. What was scenario? These observations DO NOT pertain to a census about the population, like the idiot suggested. There is a whole background story about why and what Siculus was describing. The article's writer just took spinets and strung them up to their liking, and BINGO locked...

I could go on, and on but only a hand full of people will ever see this, so what's the point?

All in all I say this is a self pitty, or a nationalist page. So I guess it's perfect for the writer.


Classical Literary sources

I am growing a bit tired of Drifter bob's excessive stance of skepticism towards anything coming from literary tradition. The implication that any literary account is pratically falsified unless reconfirmed by archaeology is silly. If a literary description is met by archaeological evidence, that's certainly nice, but it's not something you expect a priori. The Roman historiographers are grown-up, serious men of letters. They don't just make up tales on a whim. Of course the credibility of their individual statements can and should be debated, but that's a debate for academic experts, not for Wikipedia editors. If Drifter bob could cite scholarly literature making the case "no bent swords were found, hence Polybius' account is dubious", he would be perfectly justified in including the point in the article. As long as this is just his own evaluation, he is skimming WP:SYNTH. The same holds for the homosexuality issue. --dab (𒁳) 15:01, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

You apparently misunderstood my position. My comment about the academic community not using the terms Celt or Celtic due to percieved unreliability of literary sources is merely stating the facts about the current trends in Academia. Personally I don't hold the same opinion, I do use the term 'Celtic' and think the literary sources are as valid as any of the others, arcehological numismatic, etymologial, genetic, artistic, insular literary etc. They all have to be used together to even begin to paint an accurate picture, though I disagree with your assertion that we can automatically assume that Roman or Greek authors didn't make anything up. In this case it's simply a matter of disagreeing with Paul on intepretation of those sources. In fact I believe Paul is / was the one 'skimming' here. As for scholarly literature, I don't think anyone disagreed with my point that there is no evidence of Celtic swords bent in combat, but I'll see what I can find in terms of a verifiable literary source or sources. Drifter bob (talk) 15:20, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
what "academic community"? The archaeologist one? Also, I am not sure how you can say there is "no evidence of Celtic swords bent in combat" when we plainly have Plutarchus and others stating exactly that. Is this not "evidence"? We can agree the evidence is not incontrovertible, but then it never is in this area. Or, when you say "academic" and "evidence" do you always presuppose that you are talking about archaeology viewed in isolation?
the archaeological record is biased when it comes to "broken metal artefacts". Why? Because anything made from metal will be immediately made into something else as soon as it is broken. That's the major advantage of metallurgy, you can always melt down your material and start over. Notably, this (and not hardness etc.) is the crucial advantage over flint: when your flint blade is broken you throw it away and buy new flint. When your iron blade breaks you take it to a smith and make a new iron blade. The consequence is that no broken metal artefacts tend to pile up in the rubbish dumps. --dab (𒁳) 18:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The celts.

The celts had rubbish in between their houses to keep their homes warm, they also had underground shelters leading to every persons homes just to get to their friends house they had the underground shelter because when they had a storm they didn't need to go out side they would just walk through the passage way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.195.139.13 (talk) 17:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I doubt this applies to the Celts in sunny Pannonia. You may be thinking of Skara Brae (neolithic). --dab (𒁳) 18:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Recent edit about John Koch

I've deleted this as it was unsourced, a bit arguing from authority (we don't normally call people 'noted), and the oversimplified the situation. We probably need to source it to any academic papers that exist, but meanwhile there's this [1] and this [2]. I'm unclear about the 500 years bit, and we need to include a quote from Karl I think, eg the first article says:

" attempts to identify a biological Celt or notions of cultures emanating from a particular spot are meaningless. He believes human cultures and populations are constantly in a state of flux, drawing their influences from far and wide.

Dr Karl, himself an Austrian, added: “I personally think the question of where Celtic culture originated is by and large meaningless. Culture is constantly changing and never has a single point of origin.

“The biological Celt is meaningless because human populations inter-mingle.” and the 2nd:

"he said trying to locate the origins of any particular people to a specific place and point in time is meaningless because human populations are constantly moving and mingling. The Bangor academic said: “It’s about demonstrating significant cultural influence rather than any genetic connection as such. ” Dougweller (talk) 19:40, 7 November 2009 (UTC)


Utter nonsense

This whole article is without doubt the biggest load of fanciful - made up - historically inaccurate - load of bull on the whole of the Internet - let alone Wikipedia. What complete and utter drivel. Absolute drivel. Some sort of strange 'Celtic' nationalist fantasy page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.161.136 (talk) 22:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow. So what's inaccurate then, oh great one? Are you objecting to the outrageous neglect of the famous Norwegian Picts theory? Paul B (talk) 23:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
The above paranoid schizophrenic/word salad sounding spiel is remarkably similar to that rattled off by a troll a few years ago who decided to attack a number of pages associated with Celtic languages and culture, and who ended up getting banned. I'd ignore it if I were you, he or she will most likely get banned again before too long. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.172.114.47 (talk) 22:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm shocked at how many people saw through this article, well I really shouldn't say that 'cuz it's got big holes. Absolutely a fantasy page, but if it makes them feel better about themselves... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.49.181.241 (talk) 23:30, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Racism

This 'article' seems to put forward the idea of a 'pure Celtic race.' It definitely has undertones of racism. Most concerning. It is definitely pure adulteration of history and borders on or is fantasy. As if a pure race exits. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.161.136 (talk) 23:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Let us concentrate on Iberia for example. Now Espana. Is has been invaded and counterinvaded by:

The Romans - successfully for many centuries The people of carthage in northern Africa The Vandals The Visi Goths The Moors (for many centuries) Re-invaded by European Christian armies with an untold nix of mercenaries from around Europe.

But I am sure that the 'pure Celts' are still there. Somewhere. In someones imagination. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.161.136 (talk) 23:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Let us now concentrate on your fantasy 'Celtic Gaul' or 'Celticia' as you call it. (Just laughable).

Invaded by: The Romans - Burgundians - Swabians - Saxons - Franks (where the modern term France comes from), Norse Men (Normans), English, Moors (yes the Moors invaded and were defeated by Charles the Hammer) etc etc etc. But, I am sure you will find the odd 'pure Celt' there somewhere. Speaking a 'P or Q Celtic language' to his friends. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.161.136 (talk) 23:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Did you by any chance read the article?? Celts were culturally based not racially.
"Celticity' generally refers to the cultural commonalities of these peoples, based on similarities in language, material artifacts, social organisation and mythological factors. Earlier theories were that this indicated a common racial origin but more recent theories are reflective of culture and language rather than race. Celtic cultures seem to have had numerous diverse characteristics but the commonality between these diverse peoples was the use of a Celtic language.

OK - lets look at this page. You ahve a Roman sword that you try and claim is 'Celtic' and an Anglo-Saxon broach design at the bottom of the page.

LMFAO I thought I was the only one who noticed that!
'Celtic' is a descriptor of a family of languages and, more generally, means 'of the Celts,' or 'in the style of the Celts'. It has also been used to refer to several archaeological cultures defined by unique sets of artifacts. The link between language and artifact is aided by the presence of inscriptions. " and please sign comments leftCathar11 (talk) 01:13, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, language family, and like the modern Germanic and Romance language families, its members would not necessarily have understood each other and certainly there is no reason to assume a common culture, although trade and the exchange of ideas, religion, etc would have meant that the cultures weren't completely distinct/different. Of course, today we have many more links between countries whose people are part of the same language family, so peoples speaking a Romance language may have more in common than than Iron Age people speaking one of the Celtic languages. Dougweller (talk) 09:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
the question is "when". In 800 BCE, the (early) Celts would have formed pretty much a tribal or cultural unity. In 200 CE, the "Celts" had ceased to be even a loose federation, but had become a set of distinct ethnicites (Gauls, Britons, Irish etc.). In between lies a millennium of gradual cultural change. As in every culture on earth, things change with the passing of the centuries. This is something the ethnic essentialists stubbornly fail to recognize. Ethnicity is real, but in the same way that the stock market is real: it is based on shifting mass consensus among humans. You can't ignore the economy as "unreal" because it is "only" a mass consensus, and in the same way you cannot ignore race or ethnicity as "fictional" because it is "only" based on mass consensus. --dab (𒁳) 10:21, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I have to concurr with the initiator of this section. There definitely are racist overtones here. And not juts in this article. This article and others that imply 'Celtic Nations' and the like seems to imply an ethnic group that 'should be there'. As if there is some superior race of people out there - that no on ewould walk into in the street - but are there anyway. As if they are waiting to arise. Kind of like other ISMS. Facism - Racism - etc. I met an Irish girl last year who quoted all of this 'Celtism' stuff verbatim and ended it all by saying - 'we Celts are going to retake Europe' ?!? Haven't we heard that before. Several times over? Very sad that people should be drawn into this article and actually spend time on it. BullBreaker (talk) 12:27, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Look, do you have specific suggestions about improvement that can be made? Please explain where the article implies that Celts are a "superior race of people". As for the notion that the concept of 'Celtic Nations' "seems to imply an ethnic group that 'should be there'", it's just a fact of history that pan-Celticists have believed that and that the concept of the 'Celtic nations' continues to have cultural significance. I don't think this article either endores or condemns the belief that this notion of Celtic nations is meaningful. I'm sure you can meet Irish girls who mouth off about how the Celts are going to take over Europe. You can meet nationalists and ethnic bigots in any country. Take a trip around Wikipedia Talk pages. It's interesting that you seen to have suddenly materialised to 'agree' with our previously anonymous IP contributor. Paul B (talk) 12:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
the thing about the Six Celtic Nations is indeed questionable. I fail to see, however, what it has got to do with "racism", and I find it less than helpful to throw around accusaions of racism. The claimed suggestion about a "superior race of people" is just pulled out of thin air. The only place where this article mentions "race" is in a historical note, Earlier theories were that this indicated a common racial origin but more recent theories are reflective of culture and language rather than race. Nowhere is it even insinuated that even in these historical "earlier theories" any kind of "superiority" was assumed. BullBreaker is simply reading things into the article that are not there. There is nothing we can do to prevent people from doing that.
concerning the Six Celtic Nations: this is just an interwiki link to Celtic nations. If you think that there is something wrong with using the term, you should establish this at Talk:Celtic nations. Once that article reflects your changes, this article will follow suit. I appreciate that this is a topic of modern nationalism (not racism), and has as such nothing to do with the topic of this article, the historical Celts. The actual nationalist troublespot is at Modern Celts, due to MacRusgail (talk · contribs), a Celtic nationalist. I have tried to argue with MacRusgail, but I got tired because nobody was interested in supporting the points I raised. If you care so much about moern Celtic "racism" (nationalism), I ask you to help clean up the Modern Celts article instead of trying to scan this article for "racist overtones" that are there. --dab (𒁳) 15:14, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Modern Celts is not on my list, so I had not idea there was a dispute there. Of course there are valid concerns behind BullBreaker's bluster. He claims that you "have a Roman sword that you try and claim is 'Celtic' and an Anglo-Saxon broach design at the bottom of the page." The "sword" is clearly Celtic, but the "broach design" (illustrating the Celtic template) looks like syncretic insular art. It seems to be a popular "Celtic" motif these days, but I can't easily identify its original. The idea of six "Celtic nations" is questionablto say the least, but it's certainly notable and of historical significance. I think the article adequately discusses the problems inseparable from the concept. Paul B (talk) 22:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
This article is racist because it implies nationalism through a racial identity. I.E. that these people - whoever they are - are somehow a rising nation. That I am afraid implies racial superiority to the people around these mythical 'Celts' to the extent that their language - culture - etc needs national recognition. You admit it yourselves. Racism I am afraid - pure and simple. BullBreaker (talk) 15:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
If you cannot distinguish between racial identity and national identity, perhaps you should do some more reading before adding further comments. You have failed to show that anything in this article, let alone in Wikipedia's voice, implies the notion of a "Celtic race" (note the redlink. Wikipedia has articles on all possible and barely possible racial concepts. "Celtic race" isn't among these). --dab (𒁳) 15:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Quote: racial identity and national identity so this is a political article linked to an ISM. Like any other ISM. Facism, Racist, Celtism, Communist, Facist, Celtist, etc etc etc. I have a way of improving this article. Call it was all other historians call it. The Iron Age. There you go. No ISM there. BullBreaker (talk) 12:50, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
You are also confusing race with ethnicity - if you check out any 101 Anthropology text you then the difference might help you. Articles in WIkipedia reflect reliable sources and I am afraid those don't confine Celts to the Iron Age (which is bad history anyway). I have put a welcome note on your page as I see you a new editor who has to date only edited material on celts. Assuming you want to make a wider contribution to the project please take a bit of time to read the material referenced in that welcome. In particular the correct way to format talk page comments. I have amended the stream above using colons to indent to conform with standards so you have an example.--Snowded TALK 13:49, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
BullBreaker, if you are really as clueless as your above comment makes you out to be, you have a lot of reading to do, both on-wiki and off, before you can hope to contribute anything remotely useful to the project. Reading is good for you. Do go ahead and come back once you have a couple of books under your belt. --dab (𒁳) 14:33, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

As I said on the Six 'Celtic Nations' article. -- I think you will find 'good ol' ethnic nationalism is actually outlawed by Europe. Because like Measels, Small pox, and the Black Death, we are all trying to do away with this kind of disease. Because it is seen as RACIST. Like this article which tries to put forward a rising 'Celtist' state. Think I am going to write to a few people. Quoting the article. Which, of course, is in full public view. And of course I have screen printed and copied. Wonder what certain people are going to make of this 'nugget' of back water hill billy nonsense? Same as they have made of other bits of RACISM. Not alot. BullBreaker (talk) 13:56, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

This isn't an online discussion forum. If you have a claim you want to make, make it, and present your references. You are indeed free to print and distribute any content you find on Wikipedia, there is no need to tell us about it. Thank you. Again, f you want to help Wikipedia keep in check the "Celtist" nationalists, you need to change your attitude to something a little less hysterical and polemic and you are then welcome to join Talk:Modern Celts and assist me in keeping the actual nationalists under control. --dab (𒁳) 14:27, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


BullBreaker you are pushing the limits of civil behaviour at the moment. Firstly the talk page is for discussing changes to the article, not for expressing your political opinion. Secondly calling ethnic nationalism racist, aside from being arrant nonsense, could be construed as a breech of WP:Civil. If you have citations to support your views then reference them, otherwise this is not (as Dab has stated) a discussion forum. On to the more serious issue of articles. The problem may be that "Celtic Nations" has a specific meaning. I would be more included to merge that article into this than the other way round. --Snowded TALK 14:59, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
there is no question of merging Celts into Celtic nations, just one of merging Modern Celts (aka Celtic identity/Celtic nationalism) with Celtic nations and Pan-Celticism. --dab (𒁳) 15:47, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

About "pure racism" to make a pun : Hitler considered the Bretons (together with the German and the Dutch speaking French people) as the "purest indogermanic" people in France. For us Northern French people, the Bretons (especially in the remaining Celtic speaking part of Britanny) are small dark people (it is said traditionnally with a "near-the-earth bottom", to laugh at them (bad racist joke), because of their short legs). They emigrated in mass to Paris or to other Northern French regions to get a job all along the XXth century and very often people ask those who are the darkest, if they have Spanish or Italian origins. The Celts who were originally more or less quite bright or clear, quite similar to the Germanic peoples, mixed them up with so many neolithic peoples that the dominating physical type became quite brown. There is a document dating back Roman time : the Romans wanted to celebrate a victory against a Germanic tribe and they needed people to represent the defeated "Germans". Unfortunatly for them, they had only Gaulish people, and it is written that they should choose those who looked alike "Germans". If there are Irish or Scottish people having a nordic type nowadays : It can be explained as the result of Viking settlements (or Anglo-saxon mixture). Another thing, the legend about "black Irish" who would be descendent of the Invincible Armada Spaniards was also common on the French channel coast to explain why the inhabitants of a village had such a dark hair, but there are pure legends. These people descend of the Celts! Nortmannus (talk) 00:14, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Celtic nationalism

trying to raise this to a grown-up level, in reply to Paul's charitable comment, it is correct that we shouldn't call Insular art "Celtic" just because the souvenir shops do. Our standards should be far higher than that. The "broach design" adds nothing useful and it should go. The topic of "Celtic nations" is dubioius indeed, but it merits an article as do many other dubious but notable concepts. But the "Modern Celts" article is just a trainwreck WP:OWNed by an all-out nationalist. It has probably no business being even separate from the Celtic nations one. --dab (𒁳) 14:37, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Typo?

"Old English element, 'wahl', meaning 'foreigner' or 'stranger'"

As far as Old English goes the word for foreigner should be 'walh,' in standard West Saxon, which should be used in preference to other dialects, it would be "wealh."Urselius (talk) 11:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

If the purpose here is to elucidate the origin of the term, then the more northern version Walh would be preferable since it preserves the earlier form better, cf. Old High German Walh and the English words Walsh and Wales. Modern English "old" comes from earlier Anglian "ald", cf. German "alt". The fact that "standard West Saxon" has the peculiar vowel development "eald" is something which students of Old English must get used to, since the vast majority of documents are in that dialect, but in the context of explaining the history of words there is no reason why one dialect, per se, "should be used in preference to other dialects". Jakob37 (talk) 13:26, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Insular Celts

The reference to Celtic tribe disbursement across Europe contains distortions: The Iberian Celts are those who invaded and settle in Ireland twenty-three hundred years ago. They came from Iberia. They are today known as the Irish. But they are not the original inhabitants of the island. The originals are the Ancient Britons whose presence there is traced back ten thousand years. The entire British isles are Celtic and made up of many tribes as are large parts of France. The earlier home of the Celtic tribes in the Rhine-Rhone regions of Europe are found to reach back more than three thousand years. They were a significant society in Europe and at one time a threat to Rome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balddricks (talk • contribs) 21:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The presence of the "Ancient Britons" is not "traced back ten thousand years". It is at the very best traced back 2,300 years. Before that, prehistory. The Iberian Celts who you claim invaded Ireland are not "today known as the Irish". They are all dead. The people today known as "the Irish" were all born after AD 1900. Your apparent equation of a population of the 3rd century BC with one of the 21st century AD smacks of the most naive kind of ethnic essentialism. It is true that there was a kind of loose cultural horizon that included Iberia, France, Great Britain and Ireland (to the exclusion of the Hallstatt core lands north of the Alps) during the Atlantic Bronze Age, but this has nothing to do with the Celts, this is the substrate population which was "Celticized" during the Iron Age. It is entirely pointless to speak of "Celts" anywhere for times predating 700 BC.

Your remaining comments are just a poor and slightly garbled summary of some points made in the article, and it is unclear why you post it to this talkpage. --dab (𒁳) 11:28, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Who suggested a separate article "Insular Celts" and why? Paul S (talk) 19:44, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Did the Celts even exist as a group?

A section should be put into this article suggesting an alternative viewpoint which has recently been verified by a number of scholars (The Atlantic Celts: Ancient people or modern invention; James; 1999 - who will suggest a large body of further reading within this). Although the ancient sources for the Iron Age call the peoples in this article Celts, it does not mean that these tribes identified themselves collectively under this heading, making this article inaccurate as to its title. Ancient sources for this period were written by Romans and Greeks, and many sources were not comtemporary to the period. Of course these sources have use - but as to how these cultures known as 'celtic' were percieved by the authors, not how they actually were. Living in a similar geographical area should not lead to the presumption that the cultures of all were symmetrical. Additionally, there does not have to be mass migrations of new populations for a culture to spread - trade can do that just as well. 19th century antiquarians went a long way to constructing this idea of a celtic people - at one time, even the megatlithic monuments of the british isles were considered celtic, admittedly a step forward from the medieval belief that fairies made them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Else where01 (talk • contribs) 18:41, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The megaliths were popularly associated with Celts from the eighteenth century right through to the early 20th century, even though scholars were disassociating them from Celtic speaking cultures from the mid 19th c on. It might be worth mentioning this imagery in a section on celtic revivalism. We have several fragmented discussions of this in separate articles (Modern Celts, Celtic revival, Celtic art etc), but we should have a short digest of the revival and the history of modelling "Celtic" identity. Having said that, many of the points you make are already in the article. Paul B (talk) 12:21, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
The names that the people used for themselves doesn't have anything to do with what modern scholars use to refer to them - even the name "Greek" that you yourself use without qualification was not, as I'm sure you are aware, the name those peoples used to refer to themselves at that time. What remains true however is that at that time in Europe there were a disparate group of cultures who spoke a family of languages descended from a common ancestor, and who may or may not have had a number of other cultural traits in common. In addition this fact does not assume anything about "mass migration". What we call these groups is irrelevant, it just so happens that for various historical reasons the word "Celt" is the one we've arrived at. I would say the word has as much usefulness as, say, Algonquian does. The various Algonquian peoples themselves did not use that name to refer to themselves. In fact they had no unified identity. However, there were common elements, most notably language, that sometimes make it necessary in academia to refer to them as a distinct group. The same is true for the Celtic peoples. --129.11.12.201 (talk) 12:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

New section

Following the above discussion I propose that we add a section on the history of the neo-Celtic identity. Here's my draft:

There is no evidence that any peoples continued to self-identify as Celts after the end of the ancient world, and the languages belonging to the Celtic group only survived in Ireland, Britain and Brittany. However, none of the peoples of these lands called themselves “Celts”. It was only in the 18th century that the concept of Celtic identity re-emerged, initially among Welsh and Scottish scholars who sought to identify a distinct non-English identity derived from pre-Roman Britain. Neolithic monuments such as Stonehenge were commonly identified as “Celtic” at this time, and continued to be associated with Celts up to the end of the nineteenth century. Later, the characteristic Insular Hiberno-Saxon style of early medieval art came to be identified as a model for “Celtic design”. The use of bagpipes came to be strongly associated with Celtic music, which also evolved into a sub-genre of popular music.
By the nineteenth century Celticism was linked with political models of resistance and independence: from the English dominated British state in the UK, and from France in Brittany. A number of Pan-Celtic groups emerged in the late nineteenth century, leading to the formation of congesses and the concept of distinct Celtic nations.

Paul B (talk) 17:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

You need some citations for a start. Overall I think that wording gives the false impression (independent of labels) that there was not a coherent identity until the 19th C which is problematic. --Snowded TALK 17:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Well, of course. Nothing here can't be cited. I don't think it's false that there was not a coherent Celtic identity. There was a concept of "British" (Brythonic) identity in the early medieval period, though how long it lasted is difficult to say. However I'm not sure that there is any evidence of a perception of Brythonic/Gaelic commonality (though Peter Beresford Ellis would no doubt argue otherwise), and I know of no claim to be linked to a wider continental Celtic history until the 18th century. Paul B (talk) 17:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
It's also worth noting that the "British" of the late Roman era saw themselves as quite distinct from the "Picts", who may also have been Brythonic language speakers. Paul B (talk) 17:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
My point was that Brythonic/Gaelic identity doesn't break between the ancient world and the 19th C. I think what we see is Celtic becomes an alternative to saying Brythonic/Gaelic as the two language groups are related. Brythonic is sometimes referenced as Romano-Celts and that would have seen the picts as "other" but the picts are not the whole of Scotland and the level of commerce and contact between Wales and Ireland was strong, including some settlement of South West Ireland --Snowded TALK 17:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
My point was that "Brythonic/Gaelic identity" doesn't exist as such at all, though I'm willing to engage with evidence that it does. The fact that the Welsh had contact with Ireland and also settled there does not mean that they saw themselves as the "same" in some sense. After all, Vikings had contact with Ireland and settled there too. It's hardly surprising that there was contact, since they are geographically close. Paul B (talk) 18:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not really arguing with that as a statement, my point was that your proposed wording implies no identity --Snowded TALK 18:15, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't know why you think that. It simply says the relevant "peoples" did not "self-identify as Celts", not that they hade no identities at all. Obviously they had identities as Britons, Picts, Scots etc, and later as still "Britons" in Brittany, but as Welsh/Cymry and other labels in what we now call "Britain". Of course a sentence could be added to that effect. But the topic of the article is the concept of "Celts". Paul B (talk) 17:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

OTHER SOURCES This is mainly conjecture because the Celtic homeland is reputed to be in southern Germany at [Hallstat]. It seems more likely that the [proto-celts] originated as nomads ranging in the Ukraine, Balkans and in the Caucasus region. The European Literature: Henri Hubert - 'The Rise of the Celts' (ISBN 0094677905) Constable Henri Hubert - 'The greatness and the Decline of the Celts' (ISBN 0094678006) Constable Peter Berresford - 'The Celtic Empire: The First Millennium of Celtic History : C. 1000 Bc-51 Ad' (ISBN 9780890894576) Ellis: Books. Recent archeology shows peoples with celtic appearance and customs werefound in Western China including the [Tocharians] (Western Turkistan), [Huns] and Cheshi Clan in the Gobi desert (http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/archaeology/1618/ancient_pot.html) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.147.107 (talk) 22:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The extension of Breton Celtic speakers until early modern time is (except in the Roman time like all Gaul) exagerated, even in the middle ages, that's the same around Nantes. Nortmannus (talk) 12:28, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

What is "Celtic appearance"? as for the extension of Breton, the Loth line is fairly well established. Paul B (talk) 03:19, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Rodes

Rodes similar to one Indian caste(Tribe Ror) (Ror claim from more than 2500 B.C.) I'm trying to find out the origin of "Ror" caste in India. According to Indian History it's belong from the Sindh (Indo-Aryan) area start from B.C. ..As I know In Indo Valley People's move from Europe So May be Rodes or Ruhrort [Ruh + Ror + t ] which is also in Europe move there too during Parsein Empire. If You find any details please put in discussion page or e-mail to hooda_naveen@yahoo.com Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruru ror (talk • contribs) 07:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Confusing article

I think the article, the way it is written, is confusing. It says that:

"The English word Celt is modern, attested from 1707 in the writings of Edward Lhuyd" The etymology dictionary says c.1600 [3] and the word used before to refer to kelts was in latin or greek; thus it is a loanword where the orthography was adapted c.1600. I am sure someone in England would have read the classics, if not the monks, and were not ignorant of the kelts.

The article starts saying that Celt "is a modern term", but then later it says the word was coined in the VI b.C .century "In Greek, the first literary reference to the Celtic people, as Κελτοί (Κeltoi), is by the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus in 517 BC." It seems to be a very old term! The modern term, or better , the modern meanings or concepts are mainly two: in linguistics and in archaeology, and they have different theories. It is like mixing up the meanings of the word goth. There are the historical goths and there are the modern goths Goth (disambiguation) with their Goth subculture.

What needs to clarify is that the word celt has different concepts:

- the historical: first attested in 517 b.C. used by greek and roman ancient authors, still a modern term used by historians and used in schools to refer to an ancient people from continental Europe.
- the linguistic: first used by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, it refers to the people who spoke or speak a language
that was theoretically classified as celtic, although very little written records of the languages spoken :by the historical celts is known, it should be noted that it is a new concept as before this date the :ancestors of some of these people never called themselves as celts. It is a linguistic concept not ethnic.
- the archaeological: it gives the name to the people who made part of a culture. The Hallstatt culture and the Lá Tene culture. Some people who lived in the area of these cultures may have never known what was a kelt, and people who lived outside these cultures may have been known as kelts.
- the anthropological- very used in the XIX century and today mostly forgotten.
- the political based on linguistics - term used since the creation of the Inter-Celtic Congress in 1838 and also used by the Celtic league Founded in 1961 to refer to the people who speak a theoretically classified celtic language. These are known as modern celts and live in the modern Celtic nations. Their ancestors were not known as historical celts and never called themselves kelts or were called kelts by greek or roman ancient authors.
- The genetic - a very modern concept

Although the information in some way is in the article it is a melee, the concepts are mixed and even if someone reads the entire article may never understand that a modern celt is not a descendent of the ancient warlike people of iron age europe so called by greeks and roman authors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.214.241.90 (talk) 04:11, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I would support this kind of clarification. And you sound like just the person to make it! Why don't you make a start? I'd recommend setting up an account first, so you're recognisable; people find it easier to interact with a username than with an ip address. And, because a lot of vandalism is done by unregistered users, people are liable to be jumpier about bit changes being made by someone unregistered. The only other thing is to try to find good reliable sources for everything you add. However, I think much can be done by restructuring the article as it currently is, and using the sources already referenced. Good new are always welcome though.
The only thing I'd add to your comments is the obvious point (of which I'm sure you're aware) that all these different elements interact considerably; there is great overlap between all the different kinds of Celt. The point you're bringing out, which is indeed worth stressing, is that this doesn't make them coextensive. garik (talk) 11:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Typo

Under the entry for Gender and Sexual Norms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts#Gender_and_sexual_norms) there is a typo: Someone typed "maritial" and I think it should be "marital".

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.145.198.113 (talk) 06:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Stephen Oppenheimer

This man has written a book called 'The Origins of the British'. General Academic ideology about the Celts and their origins are changing. That the Celts were never in southern germany, that they originated in gaul, between Aquitania and the seine river. Also there are many questions on whether the peoples in England during the Roman times spoke celtic languages as well. There are much evidence to support pre indo-european and germanic languages.

by mrt2349876 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrt2349876 (talk • contribs) 16:37, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Oppenheimer is now a collaborator in a major piece of work called "Celticisation from the West". There is abundant evidence for Celts in both southern Germany and England. If you put [citation needed] on the points you query, I would be happy to provide citations to this effect (some will habe URLs you can read immediately, some you will have to get the book I cite that you will have to verify in a library).Jembana (talk) 01:14, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Names and terminology

Why was the wiki link to the Welsh language page selectively removed from amongst wiki links to other Celtic langiage pages ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jembana (talk • contribs) 05:39, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

It's unlikely to be that notorious scourge of Wikipedia, anti-Welshist sentiment. It was probably just delinked, following WP:OVERLINKING, because the meaning of 'Wales' is discussed in the previous paragraph. However, if that was the reason, it was a mistake, since none of those links actually go to Welsh language. Paul B (talk) 21:07, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
Not my point at all - just pointing out an anomaly/oversight that has been addressed. The wiki link did go to Welsh language - I tested it after restoring it. I for one am willing to help although I did not write much on this page (and what I wrote has been reworded since).Jembana (talk) 00:56, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
None of the links in the previous para go to Welsh language. Paul B (talk) 06:36, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Paul, when I try them they work - wonder what the point of confusionb is ?Jembana (talk) 06:46, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
This discussion is getting bit confused. As far as I can tell, none of the links in the earlier paragraphs in the section go to "Welsh language". They go to other pages, including one in German [4]. Yes, they work. It's not a problem. Paul B (talk) 06:55, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Hmmm...mine goes to Welsh language using IE8 broswer. I'll try with Firefox and Chrome - maybe worth investigating that we have consistent cross-major-browser behaviour here then.Jembana (talk) 07:13, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
I give up. I am talking about the previous paragraphs - the ones before the list of languages. This was to explain the initial delinking. See also SilkTork's comments below. This discussion is now pointless. Paul B (talk) 07:49, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
We are talking at cross purposes then. If I see anomalies, I will point them out. Sorry about that but it is part of my training and in my experience anomalies are often the "canaries".Jembana (talk) 11:46, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Use of cleanup tags

I have reverted the edits by SilkTork (talk · contribs) in their entirety. I consider such gratuitous tagging of long-standing, well-referenced content as WP:POINTy (but what point?). Please use inline tags to make clear what you mean. Or perhaps consider using the article talkpage. --dab (𒁳) 16:48, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

There were a range of edits that were undone. I have restored all, apart from the Wiki link to the Welsh language that was caught up in the automated overlink sweep I did. The article needs attention. The tags are designed to both alert and bring in editors to work on the areas that need attention, and also to alert readers that the information may be unreliable. The lead is unclear for a general reader, and is not providing the overview of the topic that a reader needs. The Celts is a topic that interests me (as might be suspected from my username), so I would be willing to do a bit of work on sourcing the article and tackling the lead. SilkTork *YES! 00:31, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
OK, thanks - interests me too. I joined the wiki because I saw a lot of misleading information and as you say uncited that needed to be pointed out and rewitten. The evidence needs to be shown for what we say and we should not have closed minds when new evidence presents itself (as long as it can be verified).Jembana (talk) 11:42, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

If the topic is of interest to you, you are welcome to suggest a rephrasing of the lead, but I can assure you the topic is of some interest to me as well, I consider myself knowledgeable enough to make a judgement, and I see no problem whatsoever with the lead, not to mention one that would warrant your {{Lead rewrite}}. The "refimprove-section" tags are technically warranted, so I'll leave them in place. Your liberal use of {{fact}} is disruptive, if the topic is of interest to you, you should be able to distinguish between unproblematic statements and points that do indeed need further examination. Can we please leave it to the habitués to contribute to articles with a 'skepticism' that could be implemented in a very short shell script (is the paragraph tagged with "ref"? If not, tag it with {{fact}})). Every time I see the "general reader" invoked I hear "let's assume the reader is a moron". This won't do. The lead as it stands is concise and summarizes the topic accurately. If you have an actual contructive suggestion on what should be added or removed, let's hear it. I also don't understand you removal of the splitsection tags. If this article has one main problem, it's the violation of WP:SS structure by piling too much detail on sections that should have sub-articles. --dab (𒁳) 08:56, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Our shell script strikes again :) I don't see why, apart from spite, it is useful to tag the article as a whole instead of the individual sections. The more localized the tag the more useful the warning to the reader. But I know better than trying rational argument in this case. --dab (𒁳) 09:30, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Nearly every single section has severe referencing problems. The alternative is {{fact}} tags all over the article. :bloodofox: (talk) 09:36, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
No it doesn't. I was hoping this was going to be a reasonable discussion with SilkTork, but now I see my fact-tag happy arch-nemesis has joined the fray, I will excuse myself from this discussion for the time being. Let others babysit this, then (Paul?) --dab (𒁳) 09:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Are you somehow missing that a large percentage of the article consists of paragraphs without any sort of reference whatsoever? Look, I realize that referencing makes your life inconvenient on Wikipedia—I mean, you're an expert, so we should just trust you and all—but it should be obvious enough why iron-clad referencing is absolutely crucial to the project. :bloodofox: (talk) 09:44, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I empathise with the frustration associated with working on an article on which one has some subject knowledge, and then having others with lesser knowledge working on it. However, I have found that when I am the subject expert, as with beer articles (I am a professional beer writer), that working with others and listening carefully to what they say, can often inform the article and make it clearer to the general public.

The article needs referencing. Tags draw attention to that. That is their purpose. As well as being of assistance to editors working on the article, they are also a general caution to the reader that substantially the article is not attributed, and so the choice is to either read it with caution, or to go somewhere with more attested reliability. Removing such a caution is potentially misleading the reader.

We are not constructing an advanced thesis here, we are not writing an article to appear in an academic journal, we are writing a general purpose encyclopedia entry - one which attracts an average 2,000 daily readers. Such readers wish first to have a quick and simple overview of what the Celts are, and then to look into certain main aspects of the Celts in a little more detail - but nothing too heavy or involved. If they wished to get into the nitty gritty of academic debate, they can follow up the sources, or purchase a book on the subject.

As an example of the sort of thing I expected to find in the lead, here's what Britannica's first paragraph says:

  • [an] early Indo-European people who from the 2nd millennium BC to the 1st century BC spread over much of Europe. Their tribes and groups eventually ranged from the British Isles and northern Spain to as far east as Transylvania, the Black Sea coasts, and Galatia in Anatolia and were in part absorbed into the Roman Empire as Britons, Gauls, Boii, Galatians, and Celtiberians. Linguistically they survive in the modern Celtic speakers of Ireland, Highland Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, and Brittany. [5]

And here's what The Columbia Encyclopedia says:

  • Celt or Kelt . 1 One who speaks a Celtic language or who derives ancestry from an area where a Celtic language was spoken; i.e., one from Ireland, the Scottish Hebrides and Highlands, the Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, or Brittany. 2 A member of a group of peoples first found in SW Germany and E France early in the 2d millennium BC, but perhaps much older than that. The Celts were a group of tribes speaking Indo-European dialects. Armed with iron weapons and mounted on horses, they spread rapidly over Europe, crossing into the British Isles, moving S over France, Italy, and Spain, fighting the Macedonians, and penetrating into Asia Minor, where they raided Hellenistic centers. The Celts introduced the newly developed iron industries. Their wealth from trade and from raiding helped to maintain their dominance over Central Europe during the Iron Age. The La Tène culture developed among the Celts. Greek influences that stimulated Celtic culture included the introduction of the chariot and of writing. Art flourished in richly ornamented styles. The Celts lived in semifortified villages, with a tribal organization that became increasingly hierarchical as wealth was acquired. Priests, nobles, artisans, and peasants were clearly distinguished, and the powers of the chief became kinglike. The Celts believed in a demonic universe and relied on the ministry of the druids . Much Western European folklore is derived from the Celts. By the 4th cent. BC they could no longer withstand the encroaching Germanic tribes, and they lost most of their holdings in the north and in W Germany. From that time on, Celtic history becomes confused with that of the many unsettled tribes in Europe. Celtic language and culture were variously dispersed among peoples of little historical identity, and until the 20th cent. historians obscured the very important differences among these groups by naming them all Celts. Further confusion has resulted from the designation of the Celts as a racial group. To the Greeks and Romans, the Celts were tall, muscular, and light-skinned, but it is believed that these were qualities of the Celt warriors rather than Celts in general. The term Celtic is actually a cultural one, unrelated to physical heredity. It implies a cultural tradition maintained through many centuries of common history in the same general area.[6]

The Wikipedia lead is not as clear as those, and also doesn't quite cover the main points that readers expect to find. If you are unsure of my view that the lead is unclear, please ask someone you know and trust - or any random editor on WP:Third opinion or WP:Editor assistance.

I am keen to work on the lead. My experience, however, is that this can take a while. Attracting the attention of other editors who have an interest in and experience of writing lead sections would be helpful - writing a clear, simple and readable overview of a complex topic for a general audience is a specialised task in itself. Putting a tag on the lead, while not always succesful, may attract their attention - it is certainly more likely to get help than keeping quiet.

The best way in general to deal with tags is to improve the article so that it doesn't need tags. Removing tags when the underlying fault has not been addressed is unlikely to improve articles, and can create a protective atmosphere which is not conducive to the collaborative spirit of Wikipedia. I think that getting into a debate over removing tags will divert us from working on the article. I'd like us to work together in respectful harmony - not actually sucking each other's dicks, but at least not calling each other dicks. If we work well on this, we could bring it to Good Article status, which then gives the reader some assurance that the article has been neutrally assessed against Wikipedia's basic standards and found acceptable. SilkTork *YES! 10:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Lets get on with it then: "Galli" - well my understanding is that it can also mean "grove" (sacred enclosure) - why has this not been mentioned ?Jembana (talk) 11:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Welsh "gallu" means ABILITY or POWER as is said with the root, so that agrees but it is not the only derivation possible - how about "gallt" meaning hill - what happened to the old "hill" people derivation ? or, "Gelli" grove or wood - people of the grove perhaps ?Jembana (talk) 12:30, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Celts ancient and modern

Jembana has pointed out that the scope of this article is not clearly defined. Is it to be about ancient Celts only, or it is to be about Celts as a whole. When most people think of Celt, they are likely to assume the ancient Celts, and my impression of the typical literature on the subject is that a book called The Celts is going to be about the ancient Celts only. It would be helpful to have some awareness in the lead that there are also a group of people today who define themselves as Celt (I do as I was born in Wales of mixed Irish and Portugese parentage - when asked for my ethnicity I write Celtic). Having made that awareness, I think it is appropriate to then direct people to the stand alone Celts (modern) article, and to keep this one on the ancient Celts. Though, having mentioned modern Celts in the lead, it would be appropriate (and expected) to have a short section on modern Celts - which would be pretty much the lead section from Celts (modern). SilkTork *YES! 16:12, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The title is perhaps inviting difficulty. I've just had a look at Roman, English, Welsh, and these lead to disambiguation pages. Celtic is the main disambiguation page for the Celtic topic, which explains that Celts is an article on "European peoples of antiquity who spoke a Celtic language" - which sounds like an article on Ancient Celts - which redirects to Celts. Meanwhile The Celts goes to a TV series. I note that Romans redirect to Roman, so perhaps Celts (and The Celts) should redirect to Celtic, and this article should be renamed Ancient Celts.
I suspect this has been discused before. If the reasoning is complex, you can direct me to previous discussions. SilkTork *YES! 16:26, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Possible options:
  1. This article remains as Celts, includes a summary section and a link to Modern Celts
  2. This article remains as Celts, no Modern Celts section (keep as is)
  3. This article remains as Celts, is trimmed back to being a shorter overview of ancient and modern Celts and Celtic culture, with a Modern Celts section, and a summary section on Ancient Celts with a link to a newly created Ancient Celts article which contains the bulk of this article.
  4. Move this article to Ancient Celts, and create a new overview article under the title Celts which includes sections on Modern and Ancient Celts. This would preserve the contribution history in the most appropriate place.
I suggest that option 4 is the one that offers more for the general reader, and a greater flexibility for development of the topic. SilkTork *YES! 22:07, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Good explanation of the options. Option 4 is an excellent idea and brings the articles closer to reader expectations as with those on other groups, e.g. Greeks.Jembana (talk) 23:33, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've made the move. We'll see how it goes. I'm comfortable with this article being called Ancient Celts - though, now that it has been created, not quite sure what to do with Celts. We'll see how that develops, though another option is to redirect Celts to Celtic. SilkTork *YES! 17:30, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I really don't think such a major move should have been made without more discussion. What, for instance, distinguishes an "ancient Celt" from a "medieval Celt"?--Cúchullain t/c 17:33, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
This article is currently about ancient celts. I don't think there is much material here on the medieval period. Any material that can be found on medieval celts might be more appropriately placed in the new article Celts which would serve as a general overview of Celts ancient and modern and the murky, ill-defined area inbetween. SilkTork *YES! 17:41, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
The medieval Celt is mentioned in the Celtic Christianity section, which links to the article Celtic Christianity. SilkTork *YES! 17:55, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I think the "create a new overview article" part of option 4 needs to be progressed with the sections added so that a table of contents is shown - above that there needs to be an attractive lede with thumbnail pictures to attract readers like on the Scottish people or Greeks pages.Jembana (talk) 23:26, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

if you want to propose these option, create a poll and leave it running for two weeks and see how it goes. I can already tell you that your proposal has no merit. This has been discussed over and over again for a long time. Familiarize yourself with the history of debate at Talk:Celts (modern).

You may find this difficult to believe, but there have actually been contributions to this article by people who know what they are talking about. Things are fine how they stand. If you have doubts, at least try to get a basic grasp of the shape of the issue before indulging in wild moving and rewriting. --dab (𒁳) 13:54, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

As I say, I too feel that such a major move requires more discussion. I think dividing the Celts into "Ancient" and "Modern" segments, with nothing in between, is unnecessary periodization. This article deals chiefly with the Celts of antiquity; perhaps the right solution is a new section on the survival of Celtic languages in Britain and Ireland into the modern era, with appropriate links to the main articles. I don't think we need a blanket article on all Celtic speakers through the ages.--Cúchullain t/c 14:41, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
There is quite a lot of research going into the Medieval Celts area at Celtic Studies departments so I see no reason not to add to the overview page a section Medieval Celts to which you can add the information you are wanting to impart and if it grows to a whole page then you could write an overview summary paragraph on the entry page with a pointer to the Main article on Medieval Celts. In this way we can organically enrich the Celts pages with out being stuck in the ancient rut.Jembana (talk) 01:23, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
There is a lot of research in this area, but you will not find scholars discussing "medieval Celts" as if they were one ethnic group. They spoke related languages and had some cultural features in common, but there is no evidence Celtic-speaking groups in the Middle Ages saw themselves as united with all the other Celtic-speaking groups (in fact there is much evidence to the contrary). What I would suggest would be an brief section briefly discussing the remaining Celtic speaking groups through the Middle Ages and modern eras, with some material about the modern Celtic identity. If that grows to the point that we need a separate article, we can deal with it then.--Cúchullain t/c 02:06, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Unprotected

As this is a significant topic it is likely to attract random vandalism. However, it's worth unprotecting for a time to see how it goes. IPs do add value to the project as a whole. SilkTork *YES! 17:35, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I can see only one vandal here, and that would be you.

I know about AGF, but you are making it extremely difficult. Your edits are so far from anything at all arguable, and they lack the very basics of wikiquette and proper procedure that I frankly don't know where to begin. I have no interest in OWNing this article, and much of it is certainly in bad shape and in need of improvement. But SilkTork has made very clear that they are in no position to contribute anything worthwhile. Instead of sitting down and working on the details of a long-standing article, they engage in wild moves and erratic editing. This is not the way Wikipedia works. If you think you can make an improvement, do it. If you are reverted, explain your rationale and seek consensus.

If you want to WP:TNT a long-standing, well-developed article, as you apparently do, make sure you have an excellent and solid consensus before you go ahead. --dab (𒁳) 13:51, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

"ancient" Celts

This article is experience a backlash from the unhappy "modern Celts" topos. Some people seem to be insistent that "ancient" is an integral part of the WP:NAME given to this article topic. This is not the case. "Ancient Celts" is at best a retronym inspired by the term "modern Celts".

The term "Celts" first and foremost, as the article lead has been pointing out for some time, the Iron Age ethno-linguistic group. "Iron Age" as in, ancient history. It is tautological to say "the ancient Celts were a people of antiquity".

You won't accept my word for it? Even though not a shred of evidence has been presented to support the move away from the stable version? Let me point out that the burden of proof would lie with you if you want to argue that "ancient Celts" is WP:NAME-preferable to "Celts". But since I am not holding my breath to see such evidence presented, let me point out this:

de:Kelten: Als Kelten bezeichnete man seit der Antike Volksgruppen der Eisenzeit in Europa.
es:Celta: En un sentido amplio, Celtas es el término utilizado por lingüistas e historiadores para describir al pueblo, o conjunto de pueblos de la Edad de Hierro que hablaban Lenguas celtas
fr:Celtes: Les Celtes constituent une civilisation protohistorique de peuples indo-européens, plus précisément de langues celtiques, présents dans la quasi-totalité de l’Europe. L’apogée de l’expansion celte est entre le VIIIe siècle av. J.-C. jusqu'au IIIe siècle
it:Celti: Con il nome di Celti si indica un insieme di popoli indoeuropei che, nel periodo di massimo splendore (IV-III secolo a.C.), erano estesi in un'ampia area dell'Europa,
ru:Кельты: Ке́льты близкие по языку и материальной культуре племена индоевропейского происхождения, в древности на рубеже эр занимавшие обширную территорию в Западной Европе.

I fully agree with each of these introductory sentences, and if you want to suggest that any of them is superior to the one we presently have, I will accept such a rephrasing with no problem. I do not insist on any specific revision at all, which I suppose is sufficient to dispel accusations of WP:OWN. All I an trying to prevent is introduction of false or misleading information. All the introductions cited fully agree with the present scope of our article, and your attempts to move away from the article scope as it has stood for seven years raises a huge WP:REDFLAG.

For an off-wiki tertiary source, consider EB 1911,

"CELT, or KELT, the generic name of an ancient people, the bulk of whom inhabited the central and western parts of Europe"

As for the frequency of the optional "ancient" tagged in front of "Celts", consider this google books search,

I think I have done much more than would be necessary to support the long-standing revision and article title. This is the sort of research you would need to present before indulging in major moves (and of course, you can only finalize the move if it turns out you have a case). Of course I already knew that this was going to be the result you would get. Probably because I tend to have a clue on the topics I edit. But even if you do not know about the topic, nay especially if you do not, there is no excuse for not doing this sort of research before diving into edit and move wars. --dab (𒁳) 09:12, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I am disappointed that some users are pursuing quite major changes without discussion, despite protests on the talk page. I reverted this change because it mangled the lead with a confused and confusing introductory sentence (" peoples and countries that use, or once used, a Celtic language?"), contained unnecessary self reference, and duplicated information on "modern Celts" that is discussed more thoroughly later in the lede. The user who made made this change continued making changes with edit summaries like "please do not remove this again", but has made no effort to discuss any of this on talk. This is really not a good way of handling this dispute.--Cúchullain t/c 11:27, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Misrepesenting the facts will get you nowhere. I added those 4 citations that were requested and someone removed them. There is no need to discuss the adding of citations where none were present before and were requested with you first. Who do you think you are ?Jembana (talk) 11:40, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
And, yes, please do not remove them the citations I have just re-added. This is really counter-productive behaviour and yes, you are not handling this well by apparently defending such behaviour. As for the lede, when read in Facebook, it gives the impression at the beginning that Celts are only a past people and by implication have died out - this is also what appears in a Google search snippet. Please be conscious of the implications of your actions before commenting like this.Jembana (talk) 11:47, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Cúchullain - can you explain the deletion of sources? I don't follow that. Although I do understand the reversion around "ancient" - Jembana, the Celts as a civilisation have died out, and the article is about them, not the modern identity movement. The lead was pretty clear about this already, though I know little of this Facebook of which you speak. --PLUMBAGO 11:55, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
The problem is that the article is called just Celts and that is the name modern living Celts use. Editor Silktork tried to fix this by calling this article Ancient Celts and before Cúchullain added some Roman era references. The problem is that readers will use Google and Facebook to look up Celts and get the initial impression that they no longer exist which is palpably misleading. Citations were requested for parts of this article that did not show their source and I spent some time to provide those citations only to find that another editor removed them. Apparently editor Cúchullain has a problem with me not asking first before I provide citations that are requested. I do not need permission from anyone to provide requested citations nor do I need to discuss it first and I do not expect them to be removed leaving the sentences uncited and therefore able to be deleted.Jembana (talk) 12:14, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Well, the Celts don't exist any more (at least in the sense that they once did). Instead we have Modern Celts which are really quite a different thing (i.e. modern identity movement vs. extinct civilisation). Given the sourcing that dab goes into at great length above, I don't think that we need to qualify the article on this point any further. People reading the lead, which really is not all that long, will be able to find out about the modern appropriation of the term. That said, I do agree about your citations - I don't understand why these are deleted, especially since they've been requested to support statements in the text. --PLUMBAGO 12:31, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Jembana's sources were largely removed when dab reverted SilkTork's (barely discussed) page move and the associated edits.[7] The only thing I removed was the edit to the intro I discussed above. Jembana's sources are not the problem necessarily; the problem is the complete overhaul of the article to imply that the ancient Celts survived as an ethno-linguistic group into the present day, which was pushed forward without discussion, and in spite of protests on the talk page.--Cúchullain t/c 12:43, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Why were they removed though ? This happens too often in my experince to be just oversight - it shows complete lack of respect for others time and effort. Doesn't that come down to bullying and vandalism ? BTW it was you who just breached etiquette on the Celtic nations page - me and Akerbelz were correcting your stance and you went ahead with further edits before we had finished talking it over.Jembana (talk) 13:03, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
The bold, revert, discuss cycle is well established, and reverting should not be taken personally. Bold editing is encouraged, but if someone reverts you, the next step is to discuss. Again, it's not the sources that are the problem exactly, it's the complete revamping of the article that was at issue. I think your sources were just caught in the crossfire.--Cúchullain t/c 13:16, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
After reading this I agree, the Celts no longer exist. And Jembana, please do not call other editors hear vandals. Dougweller (talk) 14:01, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Jembana has a right to be annoyed. Either someone here is inconsiderate or they're lazy. That's not how you build a quality article. Editors obviously need to consider exactly what it is they're reverting. :bloodofox: (talk) 15:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
What happened is that a huge swath of major changes were made that others challenged and reverted, and some edits got caught in the crossfire. It was a bad situation from the first.--Cúchullain t/c 16:06, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

The above section "Confusing article" mentions different concepts: the historical, the linguistic,the archaeological, the anthropological,the political based on linguistics,the genetic. Depending of the field of study there is a different concept of the term celt. Even in litterature or folklore there is a different concept. There is no confusion if this is well explained. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.140.96.204 (talk) 10:06, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Celts in Spain ?!!!

I don't understand how can a encyclopedia like wikipedia admit a map which represents a celtic presence in the almost territory of Spain. Which are the facts which prove that people of iberic peninsula spoke a celtic language (which is in fact the real definition of "celtic culture") ? Even in Southern France (south-west and Provence), celtic presence is rare, they only form aristocracies among non indo-european peoples (aquitanians, ligurian...). How could by magy celtic people re-appear in iberic peninsula if northern of Pyrennees they were not ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.56.1.206 (talk) 21:26, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

See Celtiberians. Paul B (talk) 22:04, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
I do not agree with you, Paul. The concept of Celtiberian is very controversial. When one speaks of ancient cultures, it is essentially about languages. And you probably know that in matters of language, there is no mixing : a people can have a Romance language, or a Germanic language ; or a people can have a Germanic language or a slavic language...But never the both in the same time. So, the concept of "Celtiberian" makes no sense. The Celtiberian were just Iberian people, dominated by a celtic aristocracy. It's the same pattern in France: France was at the time of Clovis a romance speaking country, dominated by a Germanic aristocracy. Should we include the France of the High Middle Ages in the Germanic peoples because is had a Germanic aristocracy?

The antic witnesses mention Celtic-speaking peoples only in the British Isles, in the half north of France until Alps and Massif Central, in Central Europe until the Alps (see roman texts of Caesar, Strabon or Tacitus). By the way, according to the wiki Germanic Europe is limited to the people who actually speak a germanic language. And yet, France has long been a country of Frankish aristocracy. So, I purpose to modify the map according to ancient texts with this kind of map, and especially to date it:

Celtic Europe of 1000 BC is not the same as the one of 500 BC: the first contains the area that I mentioned, the second contains only the western part of the British Isles ...

There is abundant evidence in peer-reviewed papers for the extensive and long presence of Celts in Iberia. If you put [citation needed] next to the points you query, I will provide these citations with URL links for you to read.Jembana (talk) 00:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

if by "long presence" you mean, say 200 BCE to 400 CE, then yes. If you mean "1500 BCE"/"Celtic Atlantic Bronze Age", then I suspect the "abundant evidence" falls under WP:FRINGE. --dab (𒁳) 16:51, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there is much more and I am happy to provide it, dab :) Just my observation, but I do note that there is just a little too much willingness to tag the sterling work coming out of the Welsh universities (University of Wales, Aberystwyth and Bangor) as fringe theories especially since they have the support of prominent Oxford scholars.Jembana (talk) 02:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I am, as always, willing to bow to quality scholarly references. However, I will not accept archaeologists making claims about historical linguistics. If some Welsh archaeologists use "Celts" in a sense that refers to an archaeological culture of the Atlantic fringe, we are merely looking at a terminological problem subject to disambiguation. Archaeologists making claims about the prehistory of the Celtic langauges group based on their findings of Atlantic continuity are way out of their depths. Same goes for geneticists (Oppenheimer etc.) -- such claims need to be references together with reviews from the historical linguistics community. As long as the archaeologists just say "for us, 'Celtic' has a meaning unrelated to the linguistic one', there isn't a dispute, just an unhappy confusion of terms used across unrelated fields. --dab (𒁳) 09:38, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I've just removed this image from the article (just after it was added) as it is so far as I can tell original research. It claims to be a "Distribution of celtic-language people around 1000 BC, according to ancient authors (Tacite, Strabon and Caesar). ." Dougweller (talk) 15:05, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
I would call it patent nonsense. Tacitus, Strabo and Caesar wrote in the 1st century BC/AD, and they had no notion of "Celtic-language people". How difficult can it be to understand WP:CITE? If this map is based on some published map, say which one, otherwise why bother. --dab (𒁳) 15:31, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Tartessos

removed from article:

It should also be mentioned that recent scholarship points to a likely Celtic origin in Southern Portugal and South-west Spain - the ancient kingdom of Tartessos[>John T; Koch: Tartessian: Celtic From the South-west at the Dawn of History (2009)]. Archaeological evidence indicates that Celtic societies existed in Tartessos more than 500 years prior to anything known in Central Europe. Tartessian, the ancient south-west Iberian language, has now been classified as the first Celtic language by a growing number of philologists and linguists.

Telltale signs of fringe pushing: "recent", "evidence indicates", "has now been classified" "a growing number of [scholars]". If the 2009 publication has any credibility, its gist needs to be summarized properly, not like this. --dab (𒁳) 15:53, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Here is such a decent summary:[8]:

Koch suggests that the people of Early Iron Age Iberia (8th century BC) were Celts, a position most modern scholars are disinclined to accept. Koch points out that if Tartessian is indeed Celtic, it would be the first attested Celtic language by a century or more (does not equal the claim that "Tartessian = Proto-Celtic").

--dab (𒁳) 15:57, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I now realize that Koch's opinion had already been cited in the article, and that the addition was just a duplication of a fringe view. I should not have bothered. --dab (𒁳) 16:02, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


Definition and real extension of the celtic culture in antic times

The "celtic culture" should be clearly defined. If we talk about the current Celtic culture, we can say that the Celts have disappeared, since even Scottish or Irish people speak no longer any Celtic language. If we speak about the antic Celts, it will be difficult : the expansion of Celtic-speaking peoples was certainly not the same in -1500 BCE and 500 ACE. In fact, the map should be limited to the regions where it is attested in written sources that the language of the whole of the population was Celtic. That is to exclude regions where the Celts were probably an aristocratic minority , like the Franks in Gaul later. If Great Britain and northern Gaul (before Garonne river) does not pose problems in terms of Roman texts (Caesar, Tacitus, Strabo...), it is not the case of the Iberian Peninsula, the Central Europe or northern Italy. In Southern Gaul, the Celtic place-names are already scarce, and almost disappear in the South West (Aquitanians who were more or less linguistically close to the Iberians). And even if some toponyms would have been found, it would not be sufficient to prove the majority of the speakers would speak a Celtic language (just look at the abundance of Germanic place names in northern France). It is therefore difficult to accept that the Celts have suddenly become the majority in Spain beyond the Pyrenees! Concerning the "Celtiberians", it must be recalled that the concept is linguistically irrelevant : a people can't speak two languages in the same time. So, either they were simply iberian with a celtic aristocracy, or they were celts, but in this case, how could we explain that evidences of celtic culture disappears in SW France and reappears in NW Spain ?

For Northern Italy, it is the same problem : the Etruscans, who have founded the majority of the cities of northern Italy, have probably never ceased to be the linguistic majority before Romanization. As for Central Europe, we really do not know any of the "dividing line" between Celts and Germans. Some authors argue that the Germans were already a majority in the west of the Rhine in some areas, but probably never will know.

So, the map should be reduced to the regions where the predominant presence of Celtic language people are attested by antic authors, so the 2 / 3 north of Gaul, Switzerland, Austria, two thirds southern Germany and British Isles. The map below seems to me far more appropriated, though I think that celtic presence in South-Eastern Europe is exagerated too.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Celtic_Europe.png —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sleeping water (talk • contribs) 15:30, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The map is based on maps published in quotable sources. If you have another quotable source which significantly contradicts the map as it stands, please cite it. You find a discussion of the history of the map and of the references used at commons:File talk:Celts in Europe.png. Plase present your own suggestions there. --dab (𒁳) 15:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

There appears to be a recent trend of uploading bogus maps of "Celts, 1000 BCE" to commons.[9][10][11] This is potentially harmful, but I do not have the capacity to police commons for trolling. --dab (𒁳) 15:32, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


« The map is based on map publied in quotable sources »

Oh, good ! Which one ? No source in the page confirms in any way that the Celtic languages were majority beyond the Pyrenes, the Alps and the Balkans.

“If you have another quotable source which significantly contradicts the map as it stands, please cite it.”

Your argument has no meaning : we cannot prove any absence, it is impossible (just prove me for example that Slavic tribes were absent of India…). But apparently, you did not read me. You confuse two different concepts : the PRESENCE of a culture or a people in a given region, and the PREDOMINANCE OF A LANGUAGE or linguistic group in a given region. If I follow your reasoning, I can make a map of the Germanic peoples which will cover all the regions from Sweden to Spain, since the Goths and the Vandals founded a kingdom in Spain, and even in Northern Africa ; or a map of the Altaic peoples in the Middle-age from the Korea to Poland, as the Mongols have left a footprint in the history of those regions. Etc… I’m not saying that the Celts have never existed in Spain. They did, and they did too in Turkey or in Romania (other celtic regions ?). I just say that to qualify a region as celtic, we must follow strict criteria, THE SAME as those which are used to define the regions of Germanic culture for example. And if we want to be rigourous, we must :

  • define the Celtic notion : if we apply the same method as the page about the Germanic people, the linguistic argument is paramount. The areas of Celtic culture were therefore those where the majority Celtic language is attested. Or would you explain me why two different methods should be used, one for the Celts page, another for the Germanic page ?
  • stick to the historic texts : as I know, only one source clearly describe the situation of Celtic languages : Caesar in the “Gallic wars”. He (or rather his experts and his scribes) talks about the extension of the Celtic peoples, roughly from the Garonne to the Rhine and the Alps, plus British isles. This source confirms that Celtic culture little by little disappears when we go to SW France. NO OTHER SOURCE described linguistically Celtic-speaking peoples. All sources cited on the page about Spian (and some links are not academic at all…) talk about Celtic PRESENCE in Spain, but no of them gives any evidence of majority Celtic languages in Spain, in Romania or in Turkey. And for a good reason : no text exists to confirm this fact.
  • I don’t speak about the weakness of Celtic historical and archaeological material in Iberia or in South-eastern Europe (almost no city founded by the Celts, few toponyms, no chariots, few princely tombs…). Even the “castors” in NW Spain are not officially related to the ancient celtic oppida (too small and few military material found around)…


“You find a discussion of the history of the map and of the references used at commons:File talk:Celts in Europe.png. Plase present your own suggestions there”

It is incredible ! In your link, it appears that A SINGLE Portuguese archaeologist (quoted by a SINGLE userj) seems to have been able to convince the wiki community on the fact that we can qualify ancient Portugal as a “celtic region” ! Frankly unconvincing... Especially when you know that archaeology does not care about language, but technics and tools.

“There appears to be a recent trend of uploading bogus maps of “Celts, 1000 BCE” to commons….trolling”

Yes, when people have no argument (except maybe the morgue), they are prompt to call “bogus” or “troll” the posts that they can’t answer…

To the extend that no one has proved any evidence of the predominance of the Celtic languages in Iberia, I change the map according to the ancient texts with a new one (which isn’t so different). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sleeping water (talk • contribs) 20:38, 16 July 2010 (UTC) Sleeping water (talk) 20:41, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Re: "To the extend that no one has proved any evidence of the predominance of the Celtic languages in Iberia" - From the wiki article on Celtiberians: "The term Celtiberi appears in accounts by Diodorus Siculus,[1] Appian[2] and Martial[3] who recognized a mixed Celtic and Iberian people; Strabo saw the Celts as the more dominant group in this blend.", which also satisfies - "...according to the ancient texts..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabhala (talk • contribs) 21:27, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


""The term Celtiberi appears in accounts by Diodorus Siculus,[1] Appian[2] and Martial[3] who recognized a mixed Celtic and Iberian people; Strabo saw the Celts as the more dominant group in this blend.", which also satisfies - "...according to the ancient texts...""

First, you did not answer my arguments. Second, and above all, what you write is false. Strabo never spoke about language. He spoke repeatedly of “Celtiberia” (particularly in the context of the struggles against Rome), also evokes some tribes that he called “celtic” (example : the Celtici). But no one can know if these people were Celtic only by the name, or if they really spoke a celtic language. We do not even know if for Strabo, there was a difference between the Iberian and the Celtiberians. Especially when you know that Strabo was not infallible : he has made “cut and paste” a lot of texts from the Posidonius works. Furthermore, he made some confusions and mistakes : for example, he put Clermont on the Loire in Chapter 4 of “Geography” or put Byzantium farther north than Marseille in Book II…

What did Diodorus exactly written : “The Iberians and the Celts had long disputed the country, and peace was made, they lived together and intermingled as to be unable to form a single people, the Iberian Celts”. He cites Celtiberian in book 32 and 33 (“The Lusitano and Celtiberians are loud and great ambition…”, “So they [the Roman] overthrew Corinth, Carthage and Numancia in Celtiberia”…). Does he speak about language ? No. Only “people”. Just as later, the Franks will form one people with their subjects. Once again, do you consider France as a Germanic country at that time ?

Alexandria Appian also evokes Celtiberian : “Then, it’s Iberian and the Iberian Celts to the western ocean, and boreal”. But he and no one does not know which language those peoples spoke.

Quotes of Martial : “Why do you call me brother, when I descended from the Celts and Iberians, and I am a citizen of the Tagus…We, from the Celts and Iberians…”. He does not speak about language. And his purposes seem to have more akin to politic and romantic aims than scientific ones.

All of this does not change anything : the concept of “Celtiberian” has really no scientific sense. A people cannot speak two languages at once. The south-west of France had also this “double-culture” since an aristocratic minority dominated the Aquitanian (= Iberian ?) background. The city of Toulouse itself was founded by the Celts. The south of the Garonne (which on those points has the same characteristics as northern Spain) is qualified anyway as Aquitanian by the Romans, despite this Celtiberian “double culture”. Do we must anyway call Aquitaine a celtic region because of this celtic presence ?

Again, the question is not whether the Celts entered in the Iberian peninsula (it is a fact), but wheather their language had become a majority in these regions, for them to be characterized as “celtic”. There is no text to confirm this fact. Why inventing facts that do not exist ?

For the user who deleted my changes without explanation (Jembana) : next time, I will mention your vandalism. Establishing the fact that there is no text to confirm the predominance of Celtic languages has not to be sourced. The opposite should be. Few sources speak about the ancient languages that the whole of the population spoke, and I cited a major one : Caesar and the “Gallic war”. We could also add Tacitus for the northern limit. So, the map I posted corresponds to the official texts and sources, and appears to me more accurate. In the contrary, nobody seems to be able to prove a greater extension of the majority celtic language area beyond the zone that I have drew. So, this map should be considered as wrong and needs to be changed —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sleeping water (talk • contribs) 14:32, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I saw an edit summary from Jembana explaining why your edits were reverted. It said 'unsourced'. Your interpretation of 'the old texts' is not a source. The deletion was within our guidelines. You replaced it, I deleted it again. It's time for you to get agreement here for this edit. Dougweller (talk) 15:03, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It is not an interpretation : i even give some quotes of the real texts. Which is your interpretation ? Can you point me in the texts where is it expressly established that Celtic languages were spoken in the south of the Garonne or the south-eastern Europe ? Sleeping water (talk) 15:10, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Please read Celtiberian language. There are surviving inscriptions in Celtiberian. They belong to the Celtic language family. --Nicknack009 (talk) 15:20, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I already red this page. But have you red my contributions ? The problem is not about a possible celtic presence in Spain, but about predominance of celtic languages in some regions. And once again, nobody here seems to able to prove the fact that celtic languages were majority in Iberia or South-eastern Europe. I gave a source for Gaule and British isles. Yes, we can find some inscriptions in Romania, yes, we can find some toponyms in Spain...But it is not sufficient to call those regions as celtic if we have not a proof that celtic languages were majority languages and not just aristocratic minorties. Thre is much more germanic heritage in France than celtic heritage in Portugal, that does not make France a Germanic country. Why should be SW France aquitanian while there is as much celtic heritage as Northern Spain ?Sleeping water (talk) 15:28, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Then put [citation needed] against those points you find are not adequately sourced, but don't just put your opinions on this with no sourcing from reliable sources.Jembana (talk) 23:44, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It has no sense. Once again, no one can find any source to confirm an absence. But in the page “Celtiberian”, it is written that “The Celtiberians were Celtic-speaking people of the Iberian Peninsula in the final centuries BC”. Almost no doubt about it : Goths in Ukraine were Germanic speaking people too, and all the family names in France were Germanic from 5th to 12th century. But where is the source to claim that Celting-speaking people were majority ? Nowhere. But since you want some sources which say almost exactly what I’ve written, here are some ones :


A / About the fact that only the language spoken by the whole of the people can be a coherent reference to define the Celts

1 – Source : Bulletin de la société anthropologique de Paris

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/bmsap_0301-8644_1864_num_5_1_6673

The author conclues that the celtic concept is very mobile. And by taking the linguistic concept, celtic people are attested only in Gaul and British Isles.

Re this paragraph: "the linguistic concept" offers you abundant toponymic and ethnonymic evidence distinctly beyond Gaul and the British Isles, with ancient writers even offering proof of linguistic presence in Galatia during Late Antiquity. Trigaranus (talk) 22:06, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Re this paragraph:toponymy and ethnonymy are not at all evidences of predominance of celtic languages. See germanic toponyms of France, Switerland or Belgium, and names of regions like Bourgogne (from Burgundians), Lombardy (from Lombards), Andalusia (maybe from Vandals), France (from Franks), Bohemia (from ancient Boiens)...Sleeping water (talk) 16:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

2 – Source : A. De la Peña (quoted by Carlos Serrano) – Nations en quête de passé : la péninsule ibérique (XIXème-XXème siècles) – p.180

http://books.google.fr/books?id=SmWgmzn6Vn0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Nations+en+qu%C3%AAte+de+pass%C3%A9+:+la+p%C3%A9ninsule+ib%C3%A9rique&source=bl&ots=B71egJerEe&sig=ko5wdR5m5fyasYdgCOGahpDG658&hl=fr&ei=feJJTJzZLdmksQb6voG_Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

The archaelogical, ethnographical and linguistic progresses of the historical researches have conclued in the reduction of the concept in a purely linguistic way, as a denomination of a group of pre-roman languages.


3 – Source : Henri Hubert – Les Celtes et l’expansion celtique jusqu’à l’époque de la Tène – p.40-41

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k921326.image.f72.tableDesMatieres

The Celts are…a group of cultural groups. Language is one of the most clear feature of the cultural groups…The Celts are the group of people who spoke or still speak…the Celtic languages.


4 - The Celtic league

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_League_%28political_organisation%29

The linguistic feature is unavoidable to belong to the league. Galicia and Asturias have been refused because of linguistic reasons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sleeping water (talk • contribs) 21:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


B/ About the distance wich can exist between an archaeological material and a Celtic culture evidence

Source : Pierre-Yves Milcent : Premier âge du fer médio-atlantique et genèse multipolaire des cultures matérielles laténiennes – p.83

http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/39/79/91/PDF/Milcent_1erFer_atlantique.pdf

The assumption that the material cultures identified by archaelogists precisely should coincide with ethnic identity or some of the ethnographic realities transcribed by the Greco-Roman authors, however, has been questioned with good reason, including the effects of the criticisms of the New Archaeology, from the late sixties. Simon James (1999) and John Collins (2003) have challenged and shortcuts that there is a quite a “Celtic weapons”, a “Celtic art” or “Celtic tombs”, as well as assumption that one can, through archaeology, identify a homogenous “Celtic identity”.

To summarize : archaeological evidences (ex : weapons) do not prove a Celtic heritage or a Celtic culture.


C/ About the controversy of the celtiberian concept

Source : Dominique Garcia (professor of archaeology in the University of Aix-Marseille) – Les Celtes de Gaule méditerranéenne – Définition et caractérisation – p.70

http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/10/21/33/PDF/3-Garcia-Budapest.pdf

This same type of precision can be found in Pliny’s texts (Natural History III, 47) when he gives us the list of Ligurian groups in the extreme occidental regions : the most famous Ligurian : beyond the Alps, the Salyen, the Deciates, the Oxybien. They already appear in Strabo’s Geography (IV, 6, 3) when he says : “The ancient Greeks called Ligurian the Salyens people, and Liguria the region occupied by Massalietes ; the later Greeks called them Celtoligurian, and also attributed them the regions of the Luerio (Luberon) and the Rhone plain…The name “Celtoligurian” has often been interpreted as a concept of mixing. This aspect has often been exploited by some modern writers wanting to support the hypothesis that, in the second Iron Age, the “Ligurian strain” populations have been enriched by important human and cultural contributions from the Celts called historic. It seems in this case, and without making an absolute rule, that here the first element has a value of an adjective, and the second a substantive that designates the ethnicity. Celtoligurian would be in fact Ligurian people of the Celtic region [in a state meaning]. We find elsewhere with a variant of “above” or “among” the mode of description of earlier writers.

Conclusion : in ancient texts, celtoligurian were in fact ligurian people (in a “ethnocultural way”). The second word is a “radical”, while the first word expresses a adjective (“a particularity of the ligurian in this case”). This is not explicitly expressed, but we can be almost sure that the authors of the same period have used the same grammatical constructions for some other peoples who have been called “celtogermanic” or “celtiberian”…We can note that Strabon who has the first and the most described the celtiberian people, use the terme of celtoligurian people who were simply called ligurian people by first Greek authors (see same source). Thus, the author describes the rapidly changing nature of ethnic terms used by ancient writers. He highlights the fact that the term “Celtic” from these authors could have taken purely geographical, social or economic sense. That’s why the language is the most pertinent criterium to appropriate to define the celtic people.


D/ About the controversy about celtic impact in Iberia or South-east Europe

Source = articles, books and “alternative” maps

1 - Source : Putger Historic Atlas (1981 edition)

http://www.ruthfrost.ch/Horgen2/Kelten_Karte.jpg

2 - Source : Francisco Villar – Los Indoeuropeos y los origenes de Europe, Italian version, p.446

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Celts_in_III_century_BC.jpg

3 - Source : Paul Graves Brown Siân Jones Clive Gamble – Cultural identity and archaeology : the construction of European communities (p.189-190)

http://books.google.fr/books?id=9BsG0pXp61sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cultural+identity+and+archaeology+:+the+construction+of+European+communities&source=bl&ots=f0Wv9Lt_G0&sig=XB172FxmK-j4mEScvhkcjwCoP4c&hl=fr&ei=L-ZJTLHMId_csAbHurmbDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Autonomous Communities encourage the exploration of their past as part of the very legitimate task of discovering their national or regional identity. But on occasions, these “roots of the past” are distortions (Gonzalez Morales 1992), as when current political and administrative units are ascribed to proto-historic ethnic groups…Moreover, the danger of distortion is considerable in view of popular works by local scholars and amateurs that encourage fanciful interpretations, probably with the best of intentions, but with little knowledge of history. For example, Celtic mythologisations appear to awaken a response in the North of Spain, in regions such as Galicia and Cantabria, precisely where the rigorous examination of the archaeological evidence makes it very difficult to “see” any Celt in the traditional sense (Gomez Tabanera 1991 ; Pereda 1992).

There is a well attested early Medieval connection with migration from other Celtic lands and as part of Brittonia. Then there are the more ancient Gallaecian inscriptions including those of the Albiones tribe of the Astures plus a plethora of place and personal names that evidence a Celtic heritage for these areas. There are also abundant peer-reviewed papers and 2ndary references supporting the Celtic nature of these areas. Jembana (talk) 23:38, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
There are attested early Medieval connection with Germanic migrations in Spain, Italy, North Africa, France, Ukraine, Balkans... There are germanic texts conserved from Goths in Ukraine (Ulfila). That did not given to those regions a germanic culture in early Medieval times.Sleeping water (talk) 16:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

4 - Source : Data-whales – reliable source since used in the page “Welsh people”

http://www.data-wales.co.uk/celt2.htm

5 - Source : Carlos Serrano – Nations seeking past the Iberian Peninsula (XIX-XX centuries) – p.180

http://books.google.fr/books?id=SmWgmzn6Vn0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22nations+en+qu%C3%AAte+de+pass%C3%A9%22&source=bl&ots=B71egJgmHd&sig=qv8bJxws9Z5PcPHKLpVkRJSu93Y&hl=fr&ei=duhJTIK1AcepsQb27_2pDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

The referral of the issue of the Celtic notion in a linguistic criterium is reinforced by other considerations from archaeology, which stress the need to differentiate clearly between Celts and “castrum culture” on which the Celtic ethnicity did not exercise necessarily its hegemony, because, as one current researcher says [J.De Hoz, “Lingua et etnicidade na Galicia antiga” in G.Pereira Menaul (ed.), O feito diferencial ga lego, I, Historia Santiago, t.l, Museo du Pobo Galego, 1997, p.117], the “Celts” who has penetrated into Galicia were not numerous enough to transform the social and vital habits of the area. Consequently, the concept of Celtic lost all evocative power of the singularity of a people that the historians and poets of “Rexurdimento” had inoculated it. In a recent handbook on the history of Galicia, which was published by publisher A Nosa Terra, we read that “we lack data that can only suggest that the culture of castrum should be Celtic. Our material culture bears no resemblance to the Celtic areas of Europe…" (F.Calo Lourido, (et alii), Hastoria xeral de Galicia, Vigo, Ed.A Nosa Terra, 1997, p.35).


6 - Source : Memo.fr (French historical site)

http://www.memo.fr/article.asp?ID=ANT_CEL_001#Som1

http://www.memo.fr/article.asp?ID=ANT_CEL_000


It is not certain that significant population movements have always occurred [in the areas where archaeological material has been found]. Some authors admit, for example, a Celtic presence in the Iberian Peninsula from 800 BC. They rely for this on rather vague written sources and ask the score of place names ending in –briga, suffix regarded as typically Celtic, meaning “fortress” [though it remains controversial – see source 16]. The origin of these names remains InDate. Moreover, the oldest objects which can be undoubtedly linked with the north-Alpine celtic culture, are in fact dated from around 250 BC. If there has been “celtization” [in Iberia], it seems to have been late and limited.


7 - Source : Raimund Karl (University of Wales) – Journal of Interdisciplinary celtic studies (vol.5) – p.3-4

http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol5/5_1/karl_5_1.pdf

= distribution of the archaeological founds of the Celtic chariots : from Scotland to Bulgaria, by NE France. No evidence in Spain or Portugal.

There is abundant epigraphic evidence for Celtic languages being used over most of Spain and Portugal. There is an even bigger area from toponymic and onomastic evidence. One aspect of culture doesn't have to be accepted for use over the whole area that an ethnic group occupies, there are always regional differences. This is just one such instance given the hard evidence from inscriptions, place and personal names in Celtic languagesin Spain and Portugal. Jembana (talk) 23:18, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
It was an example. For the rest, i have already answered : the presence of inscriptions does not prove a majority language. There is a lot of latin texts which were written in latin in medieval Germany : it does not mean that this region spoke latin. Toponymy is not a prove either (see above).Sleeping water (talk) 16:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

8 - Source : Oppida.org (recognized and supported by U.E.)

http://www.oppida.org/fic_bdd/programme_pdf_en_fichier/12186182680_PlaquetteOppida.pdf

= Map of the celtic oppida (according to Sephan Fichtl – 2000)

9 - Source : INRAP (public archaeological office in France)

http://www.inrap.fr/userdata/c_bloc_file/6/6921/6712_fichier_dossier20-guichard.pdf

= map of the celtic oppida according to Stephan Fichtl – 2000


10 - Source : Georges Dottin – Manuel pour server à l’étude de l’antiquité celtique (“Manual to help in the studies of Celtic antiquity”)

http://www.archive.org/stream/manuelpourservir00dottuoft/manuelpourservir00dottuoft_djvu.txt

Regarding in –briga toponyms in the Iberian peninsula : A number of these names presenting a variant form –brica instead of –briga, it is possible that the areas with –brica endings were originally ending in –briga. This is the case for : Adro-brica in Spain (Mêla, III, I, i3) ; Amallo-brica upon the Duero [Itin. Ant. 435, i] ; Cento-brica in Celtiberia (Valère Maxime, V, i, 5) ; Abo-brica in the Gileni people (Plin. Hist. nat. IV, 34, 112). Most of the first terms of the names ending with –briga in the Iberian peninsula do not seem Celtic. Therefore, they would be formed posteriorly to the domination of the Celts.


11 - Source : Massimo Guidetti – Storia del Mediterraneo nell’antichità : 9.-1. secolo a.C (p.141)

http://books.google.fr/books?id=EsHpFVsP0uwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22massimo+guidetti%22+%22storia+del+%22&source=bl&ots=KoOn8ICFgk&sig=cPvixN9dnTBe1rNlJ2Rd_jiPPqY&hl=fr&ei=lPBJTLWLG8eOjAeBmIjYDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

In function of the apparent distribution of Indo-European languages outside the scope of the invaders of urnfields and the inability to identify a La Tène culture in Spain, which is worldwide recognized as the footprint of the Celtic world, scepticism was born among Spanish researchers about the possibility of solving the celtic problem in Spain.

Yet an abundance of Spanish and other researchers support the extensive Celtic presence in Spain in peer-reviewed articles in respected journals as well as in 2ndary sources. Jembana (talk) 23:50, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
You did not understand me : the problem is not about the presence, but about the cultural impact of the Celts. There were just a aristocratic minority, like in southern France. No source prove that they have imposed their language. A lot of sources says the contrary.Sleeping water (talk) 16:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


12 - Source : hsozkult site (p.2)

http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2005-4-070.pdf

A particular case can be said for the iberic celts in the whole of the concept, because of their low importance in the History. The antic authors have not seen them as real Celts, almost unuseful in their texts.


13 - Source : Wilhem de Humboldt (quoted by Euglene François Achille Rosseeuw Saint-Hilaire in “Histoire d’Espagne : depuis l’invasion des Gothes jusqu’au commencement du 19ème siècle) – p.33

http://books.google.fr/books?id=YF5BAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Histoire+d%27Espagne:+depuis+l%27invasion+des+Gothes&source=bl&ots=ZFPlF06SWJ&sig=Ue_MG3U_YrnvgDFU7OJBAauIYzI&hl=fr&ei=h_VJTIPuLZGUjAe9sI3YDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Wilhelm de Humboldt notes that the term of « celtici » is different of the name of « celtae » : the first could refer to a latin adjective (meaning the people of the celtic region = hold by the celts), while the second could refer to ethnic tribes.


14 - Source : schule.salzburg.at (Austrian-irish scholar project)

http://schule.salzburg.at/methoden/unterricht/kelten_2000/keltenbuch.htm

There is historical evidence of druids in Ireland, Britain and Gaul…We have no direct confirmation of druids in the Celtic settlements of Spain, Italy, Galatia, and the Danube Valley.

(Is the attestation of druidry a necessary component of Celtic identity? Trigaranus (talk) 22:41, 23 July 2010 (UTC))
It is again an example : no druids, no chariots, no really recognized celtic oppida, no attested majority language...And those regions should had a culture heritage ?Sleeping water (talk) 16:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
There are peer-reviewed papers attesting the Celtic nature of many cultures in Spain, Portugal and the other regions. As I said before to you, but you just don't seem to get it, you put up your cited text for the changes - the references must be credible and reliable. The problem was that you put up uncited text and 2 editors reverted you on this basis. Jembana (talk) 00:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
"There are peer-reviewed papers attesting the Celtic nature of many cultures in Spain, Portugal and the other regions...." It depends of the definition you give to the word "culture".That's what I have pointed the problem of the definition of what is "Celtic culture". According to many sources (see A/ above) and other cultural definitions (ex : Germanic, Chinese, Altaic...), the language of the people (not the scholar, but the whole of the people) is paramount. And for many sources I have posted, some toponyms or some weapons are not a proof of a culture, but of a presence, which is a little different.
"the references must be credible and reliable" The ones I have posted are reliable, even if they say the contrary of what you would like to see. Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

15 - Source : Hector Iglesias - "Portuguese, Galician, Asturian and Pyrenean toponyms - affinities and historical-linguistical problematic" - p.5

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/33/45/46/PDF/artxiker_TOPONYMES_PORTUGAIS.pdf

"Specialist now believe that the Celtic peoples, were not only a minority in Galicia at the arrival of the Romans, but, moreover, that their influence on the region would ultimately have been very limited : they would set up a small oligarchy Military and it even seems, according to Ramon Marino Paz (Marino Paz, 1998, p.28), that when Roman came, their language was already in extinction. According to Johannes Hubschmid (Humschmid, 1960, p.149) at the time of romanization, the Celtic had little presence in Hispania or at least strongly formed by elements of pre-indo-european and it is even possible that the pre-indo-european languages were majority. Alain Tranoy stresses that the population of Galicia had to be formed from an important pre-celtic background. For some authors, he says, "the Callaeci would have stayed out of these Indo-european waves and would rather represent a growing people of the late Bronze Age (Tranoy, 1981, p.53)".

The source gives many toponyms of NW Spain which are apparented to the Basque Country toponyms. Among them, the proper name of Galicia, which refers to the near relief region. This last is confirmed by J.J.Moralejo ( http://verbaescrita.blogspot.com/2009/10/galiza-galicia-y-el-nacimiento-de-un.html ).

16 - Source : Atlas of the Celtic World, by John Haywood; London Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2001, pp.30-37.

http://faculty.mville.edu/justing/maps.htm#La%20Tène%20Culture%20in%20Central%20Europe

Iberic peninsula is not concerned by the principal archaeological criteria which defin the Celtic heritage.


17 - Beatriz Díaz Santana - searcher in the University of Madrid

http://www.ucm.es/info/arqueoweb/numero4_1/articulo4_1_diazsantana.html

The scientist avoids peremptory pronouncements, but remains very skeptical about the emergence of Celtic feeling "Galicia" and about its scientific justifications. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sleeping water (talk • contribs) 20:50, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


Conclusion : celtic evidences are often contested in Iberia or in South-east Europe (though less), in contrary of the others regions. I guess these sources might be sufficient for an edit. So, if there is no massive contestation in some days, I will replace the current map by a more restrictive one, and edit some details in the page. Or it could be possible to draw a map with three entries of legend (from darker to lighter) :

  • areas where celtic languages were spoken by the whole of the population until 20th century (Ireland, parts of Scotland-Wales-Britanny, maybe Cornwall though texts say celtic dialects have disappeared in the 18th century) – in fact, the almost same area of the six celtic nations.
  • Areas where celtic languages and dense settlements were attested (British Isles, France northern of the Garonne, Germany southern of the great plain, high Danube countries)
  • Areas where celtic settlements are known but with uncertain or controversial impact on the autochton societies (Northern Spain, Southern France beyond the Garonne and Languedoc-Provence, Northern Italy, low Danube countries, central Turkey) Sleeping water (talk) 20:50, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
First off: keep your contributions on the talk page concise and readable. That thing up there takes ages for any of us to read through. Give us a sec, will you? Trigaranus (talk) 21:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
OK, a pair of second ! But I was asked sources, so...Sleeping water (talk) 16:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Secondly: some of your points are very hard to grasp -- has all this hassle just been about the notion that there may or must have been non-celtic components in populations across the "Celtic" world, especially Spain and Eastern Europe? If yes, I will have to scratch my head a little at how obvious this seems, as well as shake it a bit at any attempt to assess and represent such details in a map. The map is clearly sufficient for illustrating this article.
The problem is not about the components. It is simply about the definition of a celt : for the sources, and like the other cultures, only the language of the people can be taken as a criterium (like the Slavic people, the Germanic people, the Turkish people...). So, I just purpose to keep a restricted notion of "celtic culture" for recent times and ancient times only for the regions where it is attested that the celtic language was spoken among the population. Texts and archaeology can be a help, and they show a light impact of the celtic people in some regions (Balkans, Turkey, Iberia...).Sleeping water (talk) 16:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
If you wanted a more detailed and more concise map, you are very welcome to toil ahead. If you want to be thorough, you should have your map show:
a) - Archaeology: extent of Hallstatt Culture; extent of La Tène Culture (which would exclude e.g. Galatia)
b) - Toponymy / Ethnonymy: extent of Celtic place and tribal names (which would include Galatia)
c) - Epigraphy (if you like): actual vestiges of linguistic presence
What I would discourage you from doing would be trying to somehow assess any of your nigh-invisible substrate populations. It is virtually impossible to fathom the scope of their existence, presence or influence. Also, from a modern point of view, trusting any super-tribal attributions on the part of ancient Ethnologiai means walking on thin ice and should only be done while wearing heavy anti-flak gear. For example, I do not trust Julius Caesar's notions of what makes a tribe "Germanic" further than I can throw the man (which is really not far at all, what with there being no remains and what not). Look at the mess the Ancients have made of deciding which tribes were Rhaetic and which not (Strabo doesn't half remember what he wrote in his own book a few paragraphs before he claims the exact opposite), or at which terms the Greeks used for all those strange-looking, unwashed peoples up north in the Migration Period. Hence a preference to rely on epigraphic evidence. Trigaranus (talk) 22:41, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
It is not about ethnicity, but about the definition of a people or a culture. Why should we present regions who have few celtic influence as celtic regions ? Should we put a map of Altaic peoples with all Eastern Europe, Asia, and Middle-East inclued, because those regions have been dominated my the Mongols ? I will wait next week for editing. I do not think that toponymy is a good idea (once again, should we deduce a early medieval germanic culture in France by the numerous germanic toponyms ?), idem for the epigraphy. Only texts and archaeology seem to me relevable, but it can be discussed.Sleeping water (talk) 16:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


It's interesting that a majority of those references are in French. In the last few months there have been a number of attempts by another (?) Francophone editor to rewrite various articles about various early-medieval European cultures to edit away their "celticity". Is this a growing trend amongst French academics, or is this simply the work of a single person with a personal agenda? Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 10:39, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

"It's interesting that a majority of those references are in French."
Wrong. If you read well, there are german, spanish, english, portuguese (quoted) and italian sources.
"or is this simply the work of a single person...? " .
Like the source of the first map seems to come from one person.Sleeping water (talk) 16:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


I have noticed this happening too - there is a mass rewrite going on with bogus citations at best. Jembana (talk) 13:11, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you quote the "bogus" ones ?Sleeping water (talk) 16:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I can, but you can see them yourself on most of the pages for Spanish Celtic tribes where the history rewriters have been very active. When challenged for references they start putting up references from antiquity and when I look them up they refer to Egyptians or Scythians or other such unrelated to the Celtic tribe in question. Jembana (talk) 23:23, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure to understand you. My question was : can you quote "bogus" citations that I might posted ? Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

"the Etruscans, who have founded the majority of the cities of northern Italy, have probably never ceased to be the linguistic majority before Romanization" Both statements are wrong 1. Milan for example wasn't founded by etruscans 2. outside Etruria the etruscans were a tiny minority, of some consistance only in Emilia Romagna where they effectively founded the major cities 3. the majority of the population in north west Italy was ligurian or celtic-ligurian or cisalpine celtic (Lepontii) speaking different variants of celtic languages (in Transpadania, during the 1st millennium BC) plus some italics (mostly in Cispadania) and minor pre-Indo-European tribes 4. it is very possible the etruscan garrisons employed consistent numbers of gallic mercenaries (see Raffaele De Marinis, 1990 and 1991) 5. then north east Italy was another thing again with Veneti, pre-IE and minor (?) celtic groupsCunibertus (talk) 11:09, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

"Milan...wasn't founded by etruscans".
Wrong. According to the sources, the site existed before under the name of Melpum. It was a etruscan hill-fortress, like celtic fortress Lugdunum existed before the extension of the roman city in the plain.
"outside Etruria the etruscans were a tiny minority".
Sources ?
"the majority of the population in north west Italy...speaking different variants of celtic languages".
Sources ? For the "celtoligurian concept", see above C/
"it is very possible the etruscan garrisons employed consistent numbers of gallic mercenaries".
Probably right. Like in Egypt (see article in this page ). Another celtic region ?
"then north east Italy was another thing again with Veneti, pre-IE and minor (?) celtic groups".
Probably right for the veneti who were not celtic. But like you said (or asked), celtic groups could be minor in this region.

Sleeping water (talk) 16:43, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

"Melpum" whose real location hasn't yet been identified wasn't Milan. Alternative traditional locations have been indicated in Melzo (near Milan) or Brescello (but both locations are no more undisputed at present). Milan is flatland. there isn't any "hill" there areound, no "hill fotress" for sure, max you could have built an "island fortress" with the use of canals the nearest hills around the administrative region of the city of Milan are actually around the international Airport of Milano-Malpensa. But of course that's also the archeological location of the cemetary of the Golasecca culture, anciently surrounded by the Oppida of that same culture. As the town of Canegrate is simply part of the suburbs of Milan

(see a map)

http://maps.google.it/maps?hl=it&tab=wl

""Melpum" whose real location hasn't yet been identified wasn't Milan. Alternative traditional locations have been indicated in Melzo (near Milan) or Brescello (but both locations are no more undisputed at present)."
It seems that it remains uncertain. According to several sources, Milan and Melpum are the same sites :
- Jean Gagé : http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rhr_0035-1423_1953_num_143_2_5951 ; p.170
- Wikisource : http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Great_Events_by_Famous_Historians/Volume_2/Brennus_Burns_Rome
- Jean-Jacques Prado ("L'invasion de la Méditerranée par les peuples de l'Océan..." - see p.212) : http://books.google.fr/books?id=AV5rHERrJzcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22jean+jacques+prado%22&hl=fr&ei=siFTTJiUEYmOOLzr4Z4O&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
- Larousse encyclopedia : http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/ville/Milan/133178 ; see "La ville antique"
- Marcel Le Glay, Jean-Louis Voisin, Yann Le Bohec : http://books.google.fr/books?id=GcjnSOqrX9QC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22history+of+rome%22+%22marcel+le+glay%22&source=bl&ots=bO7NdkURF0&sig=WJttSSjfPbQFbE0ssji2XEkPUUQ&hl=fr&ei=7CJTTJ68MMKSjAfu4JjDBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false ; see p.6
- (see note p. 102) http://books.google.fr/books?id=y9w8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA278&dq=%22the+roman+catholic%22&hl=fr&ei=VSNTTIHPJIacOPu40Z4O&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
- Sergio Villa contests the fact that Melpum can be Melzo for several reasons, and especially for linguistic ones : http://www.bibliomilanoest.it/storiainmartesana/pdf/numero01/storici_ticinesi_sulle_tracce_di_melpum.pdf
There are probably many others. You will note that the Celtic tribes have sometimes taken Etruscan places in Northern Italy sites and replaced the name (see Bologne). So, it could be the case with Melpum.Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

1. For the etruscans the lands north of the Apennines were "colonial lands" (Montanelli), and i for first doubt that the majority of the population of the British Raj was composed by sassenachs , 2. the etruscans were overstretched in their human resources and hadn't for sure enough of them to colonize the Po valley also considering that conquest wasn't directed by the whole confederation but only by some or only one of the city states and very possibly by their own equivalent of the John Company (the Romans had the whole of Italy with a lot of candidates for colonization from ruined farmer families some of them urbanized in Rome itself - and the whole south declining economically from the time of the Punic Wars - see Arnold J. Toynbee)

There is two types of colonization : with settlement (like British in Australia) or without one (only military occupation), like British in Africa, or roman power in antic Europe. If I follow you, you assimilate Etruscan to a simple military occupation. But we have few trace of any celtic language in Northern Italy upper Po River (only some toponyms), while almost all the big cities of the region are Etruscan foundations. So, the only solution which remains, is that the inhabitants of the Po valley were pre-celtic speaking. You can call them Etruscan, ligurian or anything else, it changes nothing.Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

3. the etruscan domination was no more then some central administrative locations (major citie) and mostly local garrisons, fortified markets and the tax agent with his protectors (see Oltrona as place name from the etr. "thruna" or power, rule etc. those were locations of the etruscan rule on the Po Valley not differently from the factories of the Honorable Indian Company), and simply there are no enough archeological remains from the etruscan civilization in the area showing any significant presence

It is probably a joke...Once again, apart roman ones, all the cities which existed or still exist in Northern Italy are at least Etruscan foundations (maybe older) : Clasium, Bologna, Melpum, Mantova, Adria, Brixia, Verone...and many others I surely forget. Since celts have founded nothing excepted villages near the Alps, we must admit that there is more Etruscan heritage than celtic one. For the linguistics, we have no source.Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

more recent works on etruscans and celts in the Po Valley have been written by Arslan, Grassi, De Marinis

the mixed culture of the celto-ligurians for the 1st millennium a.C. is a fact accepted by french and italian scholars from 1865 and is still unchanged from the works of G. Devoto around 1920

Wrong. Once again, see above C/ about the concept of "celtoligurian".Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Vencelsas Kruta (La Sorbonne) has summarized the whole celtic history in a really excellent work of him in 2000

This author does not say exactly the same thing as you :
http://www.csarmento.uminho.pt/docs/ndat/rg/RGVE1999_003.pdf
See page 5 and 11 : this is the only passage where the author speaks about language : about the link between archaeological cultures and linguistics, he is more prudent than you guess, since he qualifies this link of "speculative".
See page 8 and 10 : he doubts again about the link between weapons who have been too quic assimilated as celtic, because like I said, technics go through the cultures.

Nevertheless, he agrees with the current map only about the Galatians (p. 22).Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

of course you are free to claim the ligurians and the etruscans were the one and same, they were both PIE, but I have to warn you that there isn't any known evidence

Ligurian and Etruscan were pre-Indo-european peoples, it is a fact. But historical and archaeological knowledge present few celtic cultural heritage in this region, but rather a relique of these ancient cultures, like in the Iberian peninsula, where Celtic heritage just seems to be a aristocratic "varnish".Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

as for Milan the oldest archeological evidences we got (excavated from the ground under the Cathedral and the Catholic University of Milan) are gaul celtic

Cunibertus (talk) 13:49, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

focus on the map

I am not sure what this is. In case you are still talking about the map, referenced suggestions for improvements would go to commons:File talk:Celts in Europe.png. Keep in mind that its an overview map for use as a thumbnail. We are not going indicate every oppidum. Thanks. --dab (𒁳) 19:46, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

The discussion is not only about the map, but about some passages in the article. That is why I edit some extracts. But the discussion can be copied-pasted on the other page.Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Agree, the existing map on the Celts page is in accord with every decent reference. We are not here to self-publish our own research which is what "Sleeping water" seems to want to do. Therefore the quality of the references is important - they have to be reliable sources. Jembana (talk) 00:03, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
"the existing map on the Celts page is in accord with every decent reference." Wrong. Not every reference. Maybe by "decent" you mean only the references you prefer.
"We are not here to self-publish our own research which is what "Sleeping water" seems to want to do...they have to be reliable sources." They are not "own researches", but reliable and academic sources. Nevertheless, I understand your deception. Sometimes, the world is not exactly as you want like it to be.Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Yep, it's a lot of text we have been presented with, but what it boils down to would be a spell of borderline or actual OR that will have a hard time finding consensus on WP. You will (and can)not hope to eventually have a map that won't look very much like the standard ones we find in modern scholarly publications. Trigaranus (talk) 09:14, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Clarifying that the "you" in Trigaranus's post above refers to user "Sleeping water" who wants to change the existing map on this page attributed to users QuartierLatin1968, TheOgre and Dbachmann in the main which also accords in the main with Koch's 2008 map (and even maps accepted back to 1970 by other academics). Now, is this credible ? Personally, I think not. Jembana (talk) 11:28, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

the map has already seen eight revisions, and has improved considerably since I first uploaded File:Celts 800-400BC.PNG as a quick fix five years ago. It can still be improved further. For example, I will remove the Shetlands from the "Celtic by the 3rd century BC" category, as there is no evidence for that. Other tweaks may be arguable. --dab (𒁳) 11:33, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I have updated the map to better comply with Haywood (2001). --dab (𒁳) 12:41, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

As a comment to "Sleeping water", your original concern appears to have been

"the map should be reduced to the regions where the predominant presence of Celtic language people are attested by an[cient] authors"

well, this isn't what the map proposes to show. Read the legend. The light green shows our best guess of maximal expansion by 275 BC. Some of the areas included were "Celtic" only for a couple of decades before the Romans conquered them back. It would also be rather difficult to draw such a map, as there was no "ancient author" with any notion of what we would consider a "Celtic language".

In fact, the legend says "Celtic people". All the debate is about a defintion of a "people". Peoples are defined by their culture. According to the other pages in the wiki about peoples, and to the sources I've posted about the definition of the Celts, Celtic culture can be defined only by the language. Other criteria talk only about traces, like toponymy or isolated archaeological material evidences. I invite everybody to see the "Germanic peoples" page or the "Altaic peoples" page to have a confirmation.Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

If you want to draw a map that does something completely different from the map at commons:File:Celts in Europe.png please do go ahead and do it. --dab (𒁳) 12:51, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

For the Cisalpine Gaul I would suggest a celtic frontier with the Ligurians on the Po River, and on the Adriatic the celts were south of the Po

http://www.libercogitatio.org/wp-content/uploads/image/storia/gallia_cisalpina1.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/6/68/ItaliaCeltica.jpg

I would put the southern limit further north of the River Po, rather near the alpine valleys. For the northern Po plain, it is yet debatable about the celtic print (see my discussion above with Cunibertus. A southern limit could be placed on the river Po, essentially to obtain a consensu, because of the lack of sources on the question, and because the celtic toponyms are still numerous. But it is not a proof, some celtic toponyms are too few to qualify those regions as "celtic" (see Germanic toponyms in France).Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

the map I posted, as usual focused on the plain, forgets the carni to the east in modern day Friuli Cunibertus (talk) 14:36, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

391 BC is the date for the passage of the gauls in Italy according Diodorus Siculus, 192 BC the date of the submission of the last independent gallic tribe of the Cisalpine gaul to the power of Rome marking conventionally the end of the independent gallic Cisalpine Gaul, 391-192 from the foundation to the dissolution is the gallic time period of Cisalpine Gaul

Cunibertus (talk) 19:58, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Current version of current image File:Maximum_area_of_Celtic_languages.png really doesn't seem too useful... AnonMoos (talk) 21:49, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Carni

Main page: Talk:Carni

I just looked into the Carni. It appears that

  1. they settled in the mountains north of Venetia and only invaded for a couple of decades before Roman control was established in the 2nd century BC.
On the page "Carni", there is no source about print of the celtic language in Southern Po River. Venceslas Kruta is cited as a source, while he considers himself that the only heritage which has been found in Northern Po valley (an archaeological material) cannot be surely characterized as celtic (link above).Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
  1. some authors classify them as Venetic rather than Celtic anyway

With the border regions of the Celtic sphere of influence, Lusitanians, Ligurians, Veneti, it is impossible to say who was a Celt and who wasn't. We don't have the necessary data, and there probably was never a clean line anyway. I think we could with equal justification include or exclude Liguria and Venetia as "Gallicized" before Roman conquest, there isn't a "correct" answer to that. --dab (𒁳) 14:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The carni were celts :-) (as the histri east of them) and they inhabited 3 european regions east of the Adriatic Veneti (Carnia, Carniola, Carinzia)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carniola

in Italy they lived in the region of Friuli and the border between the Carni and the Veneti was exactly the same as the present modern administretive border between Veneto and Friuli (Friuli - Venezia - Giulia). They arrived in central and northern Friuli (aka real Friuli) in 400 BC, the couple of decades of presence you have just mentioned is simply related to the southern area the so called Venezia Giulia were they founded Aquileia around 186 BC but were rapidly expelled by the romans who didn't want them on the coast.

The Veneti of the 2st half of the 1st millennium BC are considered by italian authors culturally celticized, more celts then every Cisalpine gaul by archeological sources, simply they spoke a non-celtic language (and this, to be clear for non italians, means italian scholars don't consider them celts anyway)

Cunibertus (talk) 17:13, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I suppose you have asked them? Or on what authority are you stating all this? I am aware of this information, which says "there seem to be good reasons for believing them to be a Celtic race"; but the article is also aware of later authors who classify them as Veneti. As I said, the distinction of Celts and Veneti is a little academic, because they spoke closely related languages.

Again, for all I care we could have the map show Venetia and Liguria as "Celtic", or perhaps as "perhaps Celtic" ("very light green"), which will save us from splitting hairs on the Celticity of tribes such as the Carni. --dab (𒁳) 17:37, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

the karni spoke a celtic language, the Veneti a venetic one, according italian scholars that's the differentiation point for different peoples. Venetic as a IE language was very near to the celtic but still a separate one and most recent works relate venetic more strictly venetic to latino-faliscian

the cultural, the so called material life, similarities between veneti and celts exist (see Gualtiero Ciola, Noi celti e Longobardi) but the language different

Giacomo Devoto defined the Veneti identity as separated, and being him the author of the leading main italian dictionary the Devoto-Olii, his authority has been unquestioned in his homeland for long

still the actual trend amongst italian scholars is now to consider Veneti as an italic people related to the latino-faliscians

the italo-celtic linguistical theory is considered an entirely different matter

about the ligurians they were originally a PIE people but for the 1st millennium BC they were linguistically and culturally IE and celticized so we have north-western Italy inhabited in the 1st millennium BC by gauls, lepontii, celto-ligurians and ligurians who were more or less all of them "celts" (a part the true ligurians who were a different problem, of course the problem then is who is a true ligurian and who else a celticized ligurian)

"about the ligurians...they were linguistically and culturally IE and celticized

so we have north-western Italy inhabited in the 1st millennium BC by gauls, lepontii"

Sources ? Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
"celto-ligurians and ligurians who were more or less all of them "celts" "
Wrong. Once again, it is almost sure that the celtoligurian were ligurian, nothing else (see C/above).Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

differently we should also debate if the picts and caledonians were celts or celticized peoples

as everyone can see north east Italy "divisas est in partes (3) tres" regions, only one of them is Veneto the others being Friuli (Karnia) and, once a time, Rhaetia

PS the border between the karni and ancient Veneti is the river Livenza as it is now the border between Friuli and Veneto, in the 1st millennium BC the karni occupied north and central Friuli and they also aimed to occupy the south

a note: the northern part of Veneto region is the Alpine province of Belluno, according archeological remains originally settled by veneti but later celtic, as confirmed by the romans who conquered it from the "gauls"

if someone want a source about the carni

Ipotesi e riscontri sulla presenza dei Celti e di altre popolazioni preromane nella Bassa Friulana Autori Vari, a cura di Roberto Tirelli, con presentazione di Gianfranco Ellero. Associazione Culturale “La Bassa”, Latisana, giugno 2002.

I am sorry, but this source is a "celtic" association of northern Italy : its name is sufficient to judge its lack of neutrality. It can't be considered as an official or an academic source. So, we have very few things about the celticity of Southern Po valley (yet it is very debatable for the northern part).Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

it was edited with the backing of the regional administration of Friuli

and if someone needs to read about the carni on wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carni

just restored after the actions of some vandal(s)

with some clarification about Livenza and the effective dimensions of the celtic territory (Alps and highland plains 2/3 of friuli, the coastal 1/3 was venetic and later disputed with the romans, as i yet mentioned)

a map of Friuli

http://www.instoria.it/home/FriuliVeneziaGiulia_grande.jpg

Cunibertus (talk) 18:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I have no doubt you present the mainstream ideas on this more or less fairly, and you are perfectly welcome to format your citations properly and add them to the article. Just as long as we understand that these are ipotesi sulla presenza dei Celti. Saying something is a hypothesis isn't quite the same as your matter-of-fact statements like "the karni spoke a celtic language, the Veneti a venetic one". --dab (𒁳) 11:24, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Cisalpine gaul

the Change of maps made by DBachmann about the Cisalpine Gaul is wrong, the previous one was related to the period of the gaulish domination who is conventionally 391-192 BC and then in the 1st millennium BC. his new one is related to the provinces of the Roman Empire in 14 AD, without mentioning it lacks the localization of the celtic tribes it also cut out the Cispadanian Gaul south of Po River Cunibertus (talk) 16:58, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The map I inserted does very much show the territories of the Gaulish tribes, you just need to click on it because they are too small to be read in the thumbnail.

I would agree that it would be preferable to have a map showing the situation in the 3rd century BC, but it would also be preferable to have a map that has references. The map I removed was labelled in Italian, and it had no references whatsoever. Since the Roman ethnographers who give us details about the location of individual Celtic tribes lived in the 1st century BC and later, it will also be impossible to state which tribe lived where in the 3rd century BC, except for very rare inscriptions containing tribal names. --dab (𒁳) 17:33, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


That was a row map of the Cisalpine Gaul between early 4th century and and early 2nd century BC with the major cisalpine gaul confederantions who inhabited there, an it was pretty clear, according the roman and greek authors (who strangely thought their enemies in northern italy were gauls abd Milan was a gallic city) and you can find ton of more accurate but similar maps on the net

"Milan was a gallic city" Once again, this is not sure (see sources above and the example of Bologne). Even if "Mediolanum" should be a real celtic creation, it would be nothing else than a small village, not a city like the Etruscan neighbor ones. Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

see

http://www.grandeclasse.altervista.org/images/celti/terrcelti.jpg

for an old map of the Roman period but with the locations of the different tribes

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Shepherd-c-026-027.jpg

it is small but if enlarged it is quietly detailed

Cunibertus (talk) 18:20, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


I have no quarrel with either of the "similar" maps you link. Specifically because they do not feature the green "Celtic territory" thing, which especially for a map claiming to cover the period of "391-192 BC" is just pulled out of thin air. --dab (𒁳) 11:20, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

the romans named them as gauls - boii, senones, lingones, cenomanii, insubres, taurinii, arni all the major confederations were gauls for the romans, you can do the same if you want, celts of course is a more generic definition and a more accurate one considering not all of these tribes were really gallic Cunibertus (talk) 11:28, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

you do not address the point. Also, they were not "really Gallic", but they were "really Celtic"? I want you to stop gloss over the uncertainties involved in this now. I am familiar with the material. What I am objecting to is your cavalier way of jumbling things together into confident statements of fact. --dab (𒁳) 11:46, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, so I see that by "I restored the action of some vandal(s)" you mean this. Thanks a lot, Signor Cunibertus. I think this will put this discussion on a much more rigorous footing. Pray do not restore unreferenced content. If you insist of using this map, make sure you explain exactly what the green thing is (I assume "Celtic lands"), and what reference exactly it is based on. Also, I would like a reference that this map covers the entire period of "391-192 BC", or else which year it is supposed to represent. I would like to see a reference that for the implicit claim that the "Reti, Camuni and Veneti" were a non-Celtic enclave within a Celtic territory. Until you provide such references, please do not bother to restore the map. --dab (𒁳) 11:42, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

the peoples the roman knew as gauls and the greeks as keltoi are now named by moder historians as "celts" and they enclosed different populations as the continental and the insular celts amongst the continental celts we usually identify different sub-groups as the celto-iberians, galatians, begians, aquitanians, illyro-celts (Pannonians forex), the Lepontii, the Gauls of Gallia etc

Wrong. Aquitanians were not celts, and for the concept of celtiberian, see C/above. For the frioul region, I agree that celtic people might be majority. But it lacks of sources too. So, I keep the area.

the green color shows a rough approximation of territories that in the 2nd half 1st millenium BC were under the political control of various celtic confederations or more exactly gallic ones "celt" is a broad term and not few scholars consider them simply as a limited aristocracy of warrior who imposed their rule over a large numbers of populations throughout Europe (The Celtic Empire: The First Millennium of Celtic History 1000 BC - AD 51. Constable, London, 1990. (1st US edition from Carolina Academic Press (hardcover) North Carolina, 1991, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_Peter_Berresford_Ellis#Non-fiction). isn't that clear, Sir ?

"Reti, Camuni and Veneti" were a non-Celtic enclave within a Celtic territory. "

err ... that's Pliny if I remember correctly, classical authors wrote about the "Veneti surrounded by Keltoi/Gauls", and enclaves are a common reality of politics

http://www.arcipelagoadriatico.it/storia/istria/2B.html

2. affermando questo, Livio si contraddice in quanto egli stesso riporta che già alla fine del V secolo i Veneti si trovavano circondati da popolazioni celtiche;

3. anche Polibio sostiene che i Veneti ed i Celti erano molto affini nei modi di vivere e di vestire e si differenziavano soltanto dal punto di vista linguistico.

the map of Cisalpine gaul cover for sure the tribal situation still in the 1st century BC as many other maps show, if you mean the political situation which is a really different thing that map can be limited to the 4th century only

Cunibertus (talk) 13:42, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

==

Summarize of changes : Like I said above :

  • I keep northern Italia until Po River (though few evidences of celtic culture, only toponyms)
  • Southern France and Iberic peninsula : according the links above, the celtic heritage is too controversial (lack of chariots and real oppida for example), some toponyms (not enough to conclude in a celtic culture)...So, I don't keep it.

I change some lines of the texts, and I put in note some references. Sleeping water (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC) My edits in the article page needs some quotes, but I do not know tehcnically how to refer to them. They are on this page, so I can be corrected if there are formal mistakes.Sleeping water (talk) 20:56, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Map Circus

Have I missed something the week I've been away, or did the Celtiberians suddenly cease to be Celtic? How come "maximal cultural and linguistic Celtic expansion, by the 3th century BC" does not include Celtiberian? Give me a sodding break. Trigaranus (talk) 22:10, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

There is a long page of discussion of the subject. I gave academical sources and arguments which doubt about the celtic print in Iberia. But if you are good in drawing, you can add Turkey and northern spain with hatching.Sleeping water (talk) 22:25, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
no, you are just uploading vandalised versions of the map. Sheesh, man. If you are "good in drawing", draw your own map based on some actual reference. --dab (𒁳) 22:40, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
No, you are wrong. There is a long page of discussion above, with academical sources. Just read it.Sleeping water (talk) 15:09, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Sleepingwater -- why go to the trouble of uploading an image titled "Maximum_area_of_Celtic_languages.png" when it doesn't show the Maximum area of Celtic languages?? -- AnonMoos (talk) 22:45, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't mistake "me making a wordy presentation of my own conclusions" for "discussion followed by consensus". I don't have a lot of party tricks up my sleeves, but I'm pretty solid I can predict your map won't find that consensus. Trigaranus (talk) 22:48, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for the re-revert there. But we've got St Jerome on the Galatians, and I've bally well read the Botorrita tablets at university. You cannot have a map like this. Why? Because it does not represent academic consensus. I have read your enummerations (and those hours are now forever lost), but so far, nothing on this talk page will result in the article ending up with that map. Sorry. Trigaranus (talk) 22:55, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
A consensus which would include who ? The thousands of users of WIKI ? There are rules here. If my edits are sourced, I think I can put them. For your tablets, it is a strawman argument : problematic is about celtic culture, not celtic presence. We have runes too in Northern France (ex : coffret de Mortain). Nevertheless, I mention your vandalism. You have not the right to edit sourced informations.Sleeping water (talk) 15:09, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
And apart from that, this is getting out of hands. Let's take the map discussion back to the map here. No fiddling with it until there is a consensus. Trigaranus (talk) 22:58, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

this is a non-issue. Sleeping water is behaving disruptively. It this goes on any further, I will contact commons administrator to weed out this user's socks at commons and to delete the bogus maps he keeps uploading. --dab (𒁳) 07:07, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

It is not necessary. I will do it about your behavior. An administrator can't support vandalism. Sleeping water (talk) 15:09, 31 July 2010 (UTC)


Vandalism

I mention the vandalism from Trigaranus and Jembana, who has edited sourced informations on the article page in July 30th. Sleeping water (talk) 15:09, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure you're not trying to add original research? Read WP:SYNTH. Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 21:31, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
No, because I am not the author of the sources. And about your link, I never made my own conclusion between one or several sources, but I have exactly quoted the sources, line by line.Sleeping water (talk) 19:44, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
What's your problem then ? Put them in as inline citations for each statement you make. Jembana (talk) 00:19, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Stop flaying around the plural of vandalism, Sleeping water. I've gone and re-reverted one of your edits. It's not even WP:3RR. Your map may be dear to you, but here on WP it's frankly worthless. Go and read WP:SYN. Trigaranus (talk) 19:26, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Go and read yourself the rules. This map and the paragraph that I added are based on reliable sources.Sleeping water (talk) 19:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Put inline citations from reliable and relevant sources that attest your contributions and there is no problem. But if you don't they will be deleted again and as many times as necessary until you follow the Wikipedia policy. Jembana (talk) 21:13, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Stop playing the blind, and read all the sources I have put. They are all academic and reliable. If their conclusion differs from your misconceptions, you must admit it. And each time you will delete a sourced contribution, I will mention your vandalism.Sleeping water (talk) 19:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Please read WP:SYNTH.Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 20:47, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Already answered. They are not my own interpretation of sources, and I'm not the author of the sources.Sleeping water (talk) 20:52, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
The talk page is not the source for the article - put them as inline citations in your article contributions with page references and sufficient detail to enable independent verification by other editors as accurate and reliable information. This is not "rocket science". Others are required to do this - why should you be the exception ? Jembana (talk) 00:28, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Look, we all know that the extent, duration and depth of Celtic presence on the Iberian peninsula is a contentious issue. A genetic link between Northern Iberia and Ireland and Britain has pretty much been established. The 'Celticity' of the link is still pretty much under review. There is mythological and historical evidence for a link between Iberia and Ireland, but there exists a question how and when this link was forged. Current academic reasoning, and several ancient sources, put some level of Celtic presence in Iberia, therefore a map showing 'The maximum extent of Celtic influence' or similar should include Iberia. The fact that the area around the Pyrenees, especially in France shows little or no Celtic influence is, in fact, irrelevant - there is a very broad band of non-English influence between England and Australia - or, more to the point, the band between the Halstadt core and Galatia in Turkey. To get to essence of this: SOME level of Celtic influence HAS been academically established in Iberia, therefore, Iberia should be on the map. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabhala (talk • contribs) 00:04, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
"SOME level of Celtic influence HAS been academically established in Iberia, therefore, Iberia should be on the map." Of course, not ! Would you agree to have a map of "Germanic peoples" which would include Spain, Morocco, Ukraine...just because this regions have received some little Germanic heritages? No sense.
"The fact that the area around the Pyrenees...shows little or no Celtic influence is, in fact, irrelevant - there is a very broad band of non-English influence between England and Australia" The difference is that we have proofs of majority English language and culture in Australia. While a lot of sources proves the contrary about Celts in Spain or Southern France.Sleeping water (talk) 19:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Let's get back from Australia here. Point with WP:SYN being brought to your attention is: stick to the maps that Celtic scholars draw up, such as Haywood (2001). You are free to personally qualify such maps with the pre-Roman census figures of your own individual fancy, as any grown-up may do, and you may indeed proudly dub yourself a "Celtic sociocultural minimalist" whenever the topic comes up at dinner parties, if that puts your kettle on. Do not, however, label something "maximal cultural and linguistic Celtic expansion" when it evidently is not. It won't stick as long as it is not the academic consensus. Trigaranus (talk) 21:33, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

"Would you agree to have a map of "Germanic peoples" which would include Spain, Morocco, Ukraine..." - you mean like the map that exists on the Germanic people wiki article, clearly showing their migrations into those areas? Yes, of course I would, insofar as there is evidence to support it. In the case of a Celtic presence in Iberia - that has been proven. Your problem seems to be that the level of penetration has not been established to your personal satisfaction. As I quoted above, Strabo was of the opinion that the Celtic faction among the Celtiberians was dominant. As for your argument that the concept of 'Celtiberians' in itself is nonsense, it is no more so than 'Anglo-Irish', or 'African-American' - it represents a merging of cultures, or a substrate culture within the host culture.
The predominance of the English language in Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Cornwall, and Wales and French in Brittany demonstrates precisely the dangers of over-reliance on language as a definitative marker as to the penetration of a culture.
On the Australia point, my intent was to demonstrate that there are many possible reasons why a particular cultural influence may be isolated - I could speculate, for example, that a group of Celts came to Iberia by sea rather than over the Pyrennees, or that a group migrated through the area without settling as was the case with Galatia. The apparent isolation cannot be used as proof that the enclave did not exist, or was not significant. Gabhala (talk) 22:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


"stick to the maps that Celtic scholars draw up, such as Haywood (2001). "

Please, read the talk page above. I have put more than one academical map. And do not make Haywood say what he has never said : what I see in those maps, is that Spain is nor concerned by Hallstatt, nether by La Tène. In the last map, it is about "migrations", and Spain is drawn with orange, and not with blue. Why, according to you ? Is it not an indication that he considers himself that Spain is a particular and controversial case ? So, the three maps which should prove your statements just confirm in fact what I say from the beginning. Thanks for this source, I add it in the list above.Sleeping water (talk) 18:46, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


"You are free to personally qualify such maps with the pre-Roman census figures of your own individual fancy"

Once again, just read the talk page. The map I have posted is the result of 15 academical sources (16 now!). Sleeping water (talk) 18:46, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


"Do not, however, label something "maximal cultural and linguistic Celtic expansion" when it evidently is not. "

"Evidently" ? Which source, excepted your own personal intuition ? Once again, I have posted 16 sources which doubt and contest the Celtic print in the peripheral regions. See the talk page.Sleeping water (talk) 18:46, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


"It won't stick as long as it is not the academic consensus. "

Academic consensus ? Between who and who ? The thousands of users of the wiki ? Or just you and some friends ? Sleeping water (talk) 18:46, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


"you mean like the map that exists on the Germanic people wiki article, clearly showing their migrations into those areas? "

Not really, but since you show me those ones, two points :

  • First, just see the source : Putzger Historical Atlas. I have already put this source (see above D/, n°1). So, if I follow you, you accept this source for the Germanics, but not for the Celts ! Incoherent.
  • Second, like you have said well, these maps show the Germanic migrations. From the beginning, I do not contest Celtic migrations in Spain, I just contest that Celts should have print their culture there, culture defined essentially by the language.


" Yes, of course I would, insofar as there is evidence to support it."

Are you joking ?

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymie_fran%C3%A7aise#Noms_germaniques

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandals#The_Vandal_Kingdom_in_North_Africa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulfilas


OK. Now, for you, early medieval France, Northern Africa and Ukraine were Germanic.


"Your problem seems to be that the level of penetration has not been established to your personal satisfaction. "

Not for mine. 16 sources on line until today. Just read the talk page.


"Strabo was of the opinion that the Celtic faction among the Celtiberians was dominant."

Strabo has never written such a thing. He only mentioned the Celtiberian. This problematic has been already discussed. Just read the talk page about Strabon, and about the concept of "Celtiberian" (C/ above).


"As for your argument that the concept of 'Celtiberians' in itself is nonsense, it is no more so than 'Anglo-Irish', or 'African-American' - it represents a merging of cultures, or a substrate culture within the host culture."

Maybe for some "differencialists" or "hierarchists" (I don't say more). But like it or not, African American are culturally American like the others.

For the "anglo-irish" culture, the wiki says that it concerns English upper-classes living among Irish people...like Celtiberian were Celtic upper-classes living among Iberians. Once again, you prove my position.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Irish


For Scotland, this is entirely wrong : Scottish are completely integrated in the English culture, because of the language and because they live in the same country since 300 years. Same thing for the Bretons. And this is not a kilt wear for some feasts, or some bagpipes in a festival which will change anything. Your considerations put in relief not cultural problematics, but politic ones, especially regionalist ones. This is not the same.


"On the Australia point, my intent was to demonstrate that there are many possible reasons why a particular cultural influence may be isolated "

Yes, this kind of situation can exist. But in the Spanish or the Portuguese caes, there is nothing to prove it. The only evidences we get, are traces of Celtic tribes, and very few archaeological material (no chariot, no really oppida...see above). Sleeping water (talk) 18:46, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


"For the "anglo-irish" culture, the wiki says that it concerns English upper-classes living among Irish people...like Celtiberian were Celtic upper-classes living among Iberians. Once again, you prove my position."
Except that the Anglo-Irish culture has left an indelible mark on Ireland, particularly in the east and around Dublin. You might want to read the article a bit more closely.
"For Scotland, this is entirely wrong : Scottish are completely integrated in the English culture, because of the language and because they live in the same country since 300 years."
You should go to the Scottish Highands - and even certain parts of the lowlands - and see where that argument gets you... The same goes for Brittany, where a strong separatist movement exists.
"...very few archaeological material (no chariot, no really oppida...see above)."
Archeologically, evidence of both the La Tene and Halstadtt cultures exist in Iberia. As for chariots and oppida - none found in Ireland either...
As for your confusion on consensus - here are a few wiki articles, contributed to by some of the thousands of wiki users you mention, all containing references to an established Celtic and/or Celtized population on the Iberian peninsula:
Celtiberians
Lusitanians
Timeline of Portuguese history (Pre-Roman)
Iberia
History of Spain
History of Portugal
Spanish architecture
List of Celtic tribes
Languages of Iberia
The Spanish language versions of several (if not all) of these pages all reference the Celtic presence in Iberia also. That's a pretty large consensus across two language groups (and by your definitions - cultures). I'm fairly sure the same references exist in the Portuguese language pages too, but I haven't actually checked them all.

Gabhala (talk) 21:17, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


You should go to the Scottish Highands - and even certain parts of the lowlands - and see where that argument gets you... The same goes for Brittany, where a strong separatist movement exists.
It's a strange argument, but I suspect Sleeping Water has not been to Scotland. In fairness, his argument would hold for former celtic areas that have integrated, like Cumbria or Devon.Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 22:22, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


"Except that the Anglo-Irish culture has left an indelible mark on Ireland, particularly in the east and around Dublin. You might want to read the article a bit more closely."

I have sought and re-sought your allegation in the article, but sorry, such a statement is nowhere written. Do not create facts which do not exist. Or maybe could you quote them. Nevertheless, this is not really the question.Sleeping water (talk) 19:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


"You should go to the Scottish Highands - and even certain parts of the lowlands - and see where that argument gets you"

We are not here in the Scottish tourism office, but in an encyclopedia. I don't agree with your statements, but I won't answer, because it is a very long debate, and this is not the subject. Back to the Antic Celtic culture...Sleeping water (talk) 19:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


"Archeologically, evidence of both the La Tene and Halstadtt cultures exist in Iberia. As for chariots and oppida - none found in Ireland either..."

How paradoxical. You have posted a source from Haywood to block my arguments, and now, I will use your own source to block yours :

http://faculty.mville.edu/justing/maps.htm#Hallstatt%20Culture%20in%20Central%20Europe

And if you want, there are many other sources which contest that Spain should really be concerned by La Tene and Hallstatt. Idem for chariots and oppida. Just see the sources that I have put above. For Ireland, I agree that there has not been oppida (according to the sources). But do not forget :

  • First, as I said, the link between archaeological material and language or culture is debatable (see Venceslas Kruta above)
  • Second, it is impossible to contest a Celtic culture in Ireland, because it is proved that in Ireland, Celtic language was majority until recently. And this fact just proves the precedent assertion : culture and archaeological material are not always linked. So, the fact that we have found some material in Spain is not sufficient to give a Celtic cultural feature to this region.Sleeping water (talk) 19:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


"here are a few wiki articles...all containing references to an established Celtic and/or Celtized population on the Iberian peninsula...The Spanish language versions of several (if not all) of these pages all reference the Celtic presence in Iberia also."

First, I notice that you have no argument neither sources against all my points.

Second, you go on making strawan arguments, again, and again, and again by arguing that there has been a Celtic presence and language in Spain. Once for all, I have not contested that some Celtic tribes should have entered in Spain. The debate concerns the cultural print, essentially defined by the language of the majority people. Some Celtic dialects should have been spoken in Iberia ? Yes, I do not contest. But only by minority elites. See the sources that I have posted. We find Celtic archaeological evidences in Iberia ? Yes, though they are few numerous and controversial. I do not contest. But this does not make this region an antic Celtic region. All your links talk about the presence of Celtic tribes, but they do not say that Celtic language and culture was majority.

I have taken the example of the Germanics in France, Northern Africa or Ukraine. You have not answered...Because it is obvious that Germanics have never print their culture in those regions. They have only left traces : inscriptions, toponyms, archaeological material, more or less ephemeral kingdoms...exactly like Celts in Spain. Sleeping water (talk) 19:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


"That's a pretty large consensus across two language groups (and by your definitions - cultures)"

No. First, they are not "my" definitions, they have been defined in the sources that I have posted (see A/). Second, a Celtic inscription is not a proof that Celtic culture has been majority. Just see runic inscriptions in Normandy, Gothic texts in Ukraine or Latin texts in medieval Germany...Sleeping water (talk) 19:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

To conclude, I think that the better solution would to draw the Putger Historical Atlas map (http://www.ruthfrost.ch/Horgen2/Kelten_Karte.jpg). This is the source used in first on the "Germanic peoples" article. It should be logic to take again this source, because :

  • this is a very close subject to the Germanics (antic european cultures)
  • the source is academical and reliable
  • this map represents well the situation according to the sources : a coloured area where the Celtic culture print is attested, and arrows for the peripheral regions where the Celtic tribes have migrated, but with a limited or superficial impact(Egypt included). Sleeping water (talk) 19:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I see no reason to change from the existing map. The labelling clearly indicates it is a diachronic map, the colour key is self-explanatory, and it is in no way suggestive of a permanent cultural imprint. On the contrary, the colour key separates the core areas, the areas of temporary influence and the areas where lasting imprint has been established.
The point of a map labelled ‘Diachronic distribution of Celtic peoples’ is to show the maximum extent of Celtic presence - it is not claiming some sort of 'Celtic Empire' or anything like it. It simply shows where they came from, and how far they expanded over time – hence ‘diachronic’. A significant Celtic presence in Iberia has been established - even if it was, as you claim, just a ruling elite, that still qualifies for inclusion on a map of the maximum extent, especially considering that such a ruling elite would still have brought with them armies, the machinery of whatever civil and religious administration would have applied in that time, as well as spouses and children - in other words, they would have had enough Celts with them to secure their rule and administer it. It is also worth considering that the Celts were typically tribal, rather than empire-building, so the concept of a 'ruling elite' does not sit naturally in this context. Even in the case where the Celtic presence could be considered to be as a result of refugee tribes ‘hosted’ be the native population, it still falls under the definition of ‘distribution’. The caption on the map is not 'Places where the Celts have left a significant cultural impact', so it is really irrelevant whether the majority or minority spoke Celtic languages.
We're talking about wikipedia consensus and academic consensus, not proof of majority in any given region. The Germans didn't constitute a majority in France during WWII, but a map showing the maximum extent of the Third Reich which didn't include France, Benelux and the Netherlands would be completely misleading.
Interesting that you keep bringing up the lack of oppida as evidence - Oppidum - there are several listed there, and digging a little deeper, several such settlements that may be too small to fit the stricter 'walled city' definition, referred to in Spanish as 'castros' or 'citanias' are in plentiful supply - Hillforts. In short, at first glance, it would appear that more Celtic oppida have been found in Iberia than in the so-called ‘Six Celtic Nations’.
What is also interesting is that you state "it is impossible to contest a Celtic culture in Ireland, because it is proved that in Ireland, Celtic language was majority until recently", and yet you claim Scotland is English? But, it really doesn't matter whether you agree or not, since the fact is that the culture of Scotland is very different from that of England. Anyone with even a passing experience of either country would be aware of this. In Ireland, there were times under English rule when the use of the Gaelic language and any expression of Gaelic culture, even any form of education for the native population were actually completely illegal.
"But this does not make this region an antic Celtic region" - so, toponymy, archaeology, and contemporary sources are not enough – in which case, what proof is there that there was an Iberian presence on the peninsula in pre-Roman/Roman times? Your logic is circular. If these markers are taken from the equation, then history will have to rely on digging up the dead and asking them what language they spoke - and where would that leave today's children of (for example) Irish and German parenthood, who grow up speaking both English and Gaelic from the father's side and German from the mother? And what if the child is born and raised in a country other than Ireland or Germany - what 'cultural identity' from your neat little boxes would such a child fit into? Irish? German? the other country?
From the ‘Iberia’ section of the article itself: “Modern scholarship, however, has clearly proven that Celtic presence and influences were most substantial in what is today Spain and Portugal (with perhaps the highest settlement saturation in Western Europe), particularly in the central, western and northern regions. The Celts in Iberia were divided into two main archaeological and cultural groups,[37] even though that division is not very clear”

Gabhala (talk) 22:06, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

"The labelling clearly indicates it is a diachronic map ... to show the maximum extent of Celtic presence" it sounds reasonable to me Cunibertus (talk) 22:37, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


"The labelling clearly indicates it is a diachronic map, the colour key is self-explanatory, and it is in no way suggestive of a permanent cultural imprint...The point of a map labelled ‘Diachronic distribution of Celtic peoples’ is to show the maximum extent of Celtic presence - it is not claiming some sort of 'Celtic Empire' or anything like it. It simply shows where they came from, and how far they expanded over time"

Wrong. The title of the map is "Diachronic distribution of Celtic peoples". Using the term of "people" involves that the people living in those areas had a Celtic culture. According to the sources in A/, only the majority language can define an antic "people" culture. Once again, would you agree with a map titled "distribution of Germanic peoples" and which would include Northern Africa, Spain or Balkans ?Sleeping water (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


"On the contrary, the colour key separates the core areas, the areas of temporary influence and the areas where lasting imprint has been established."

Wrong. The map uses nowhere the expression "temporary influence". We could keep this expression for Spain or Galatia, but in this case, the map has to be entirely changed. We can not keep the notion of "people" and in the same time, maintaining the feeling that those peoples should have let few heritage. If there has been "peoples" in a region, it means that their culture was dominant. Which is not the case for Iberia or Egypt or Galatia...Sleeping water (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


"A significant Celtic presence in Iberia has been established - even if it was, as you claim, just a ruling elite, that still qualifies for inclusion on a map of the maximum extent...Even in the case where the Celtic presence could be considered to be as a result of refugee tribes ‘hosted’ be the native population, it still falls under the definition of ‘distribution’. The caption on the map is not 'Places where the Celts have left a significant cultural impact', so it is really irrelevant whether the majority or minority spoke Celtic languages."

In this case, we have two alternatives :

  • the map should include Egypt, Balkans, Greece...and the title must be changed, with the word "migrations" replacing the word "peoples". And if one day, a single study presents an evidence of some celtic material or some celtic mercenaries found in Northern Africa or Russia, this map will have to include those regions. Big challenge...
  • if you don't want to keep Egypt, Balkans or Greece, so, there is no reason to keep Spain.


"The Germans didn't constitute a majority in France during WWII, but a map showing the maximum extent of the Third Reich which didn't include France, Benelux and the Netherlands would be completely misleading."

Good example. Saying that German army has occupied France does not mean suddenly that France has become a country of "Germanic culture" or that French should have suddenly become a "Germanic people". However, this kind of reasoning appears with the current map.


"Interesting that you keep bringing up the lack of oppida as evidence - Oppidum - there are several listed there"

I have read the wiki links, and for the three sites, it is nowhere question of Celtic oppida : I did not dig the question, but for Obidos in Portugal, the article talks about a Roman oppidum, not a Celtic one. And for Iruna-Veleia, I don't see anywhere the "term" of oppida. "Worse", it seems that Egyptian hieroglyphs should have been found there. It is time for you to edit the page about the ancient Egyptians and to put a map including Northern Spain in the ancient Egyptian culture...Sleeping water (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


"several such settlements that may be too small to fit the stricter 'walled city' definition, referred to in Spanish as 'castros' or 'citanias' are in plentiful supply - Hillforts. In short, at first glance, it would appear that more Celtic oppida have been found in Iberia than in the so-called ‘Six Celtic Nations’."

I have already answered and given sources about the Celtic oppida. According to Stephan Fichtl, Iberia is not included in their area. And Carlos Serrano doubts too about the link between the strongholds of Northwestern Spain and the Celtic oppida. The features of those last do not seem to the Celtic ones, it is a fact, you must do with it. I just can refer you to the sources above.Sleeping water (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


"What is also interesting is that you state "it is impossible to contest a Celtic culture in Ireland, because it is proved that in Ireland, Celtic language was majority until recently", and yet you claim Scotland is English? But, it really doesn't matter whether you agree or not, since the fact is that the culture of Scotland is very different from that of England."

You want to lead me in an offtopic. Once again, I won't argue about the question "Are the Scottish still really celtic now, or have they become English ?". Your original allegation was to point that no oppida has been found in Ireland. My answer was : Ireland HAS to be considered as Celtic in ancient times because we have a proof : their attested Celtic language until 19th century, oppida or not. And once again, it proves that archaeology traces and culture are not necessarily linked.Sleeping water (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


"in which case, what proof is there that there was an Iberian presence on the peninsula in pre-Roman/Roman times?"

For example, you can see the source D/ n° 15 about the toponymy in Northwestern Spain...Sleeping water (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


"If these markers are taken from the equation, then history will have to rely on digging up the dead and asking them what language they spoke"

Unuseful. Just read the sources above about the Roman descriptions, and especially about the concept of Celtiberian (C/)


"and where would that leave today's children of (for example) Irish and German parenthood, who grow up speaking both English and Gaelic from the father's side and German from the mother? And what if the child is born and raised in a country other than Ireland or Germany - what 'cultural identity' from your neat little boxes would such a child fit into? Irish? German? the other country?"

The multiple acculturated people notion is a very interesting debate (though your examples are quite marginal), but offtopic. And if you really want an answer, I would say : all depends of their mother language (it means the language they use everyday for their own affairs).Sleeping water (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


"From the ‘Iberia’ section of the article itself: “Modern scholarship, however, has clearly proven that Celtic presence and influences were most substantial in what is today Spain and Portugal (with perhaps the highest settlement saturation in Western Europe), particularly in the central, western and northern regions. The Celts in Iberia were divided into two main archaeological and cultural groups,[37] even though that division is not very clear”"

This sentance should not be accepted in the article, because of two reasons:

  • wikipedia rules do not allow expressions like "modern scholarship" or "it is proved"...In the contrary, the paragraph that I had added used precise expressions, name of searchers and quotes.
  • this sentance is wrong, just because of the sources that I have put in this talk page.

So, I maintain my purpose : we should put in first the map of Putzger Historical Atlas, with a central area where Celtic culture is attested, and arrows for the migrations of the Celtic tribes. And to keep the paragraph that I had added. Sleeping water (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


""The labelling clearly indicates it is a diachronic map ... to show the maximum extent of Celtic presence" it sounds reasonable to me"

See above. Sleeping water (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


So, I maintain my purpose : we should put in first the map of Putzger Historical Atlas, with a central area where Celtic culture is attested, and arrows for the migrations of the Celtic tribes. And to keep the paragraph that I had added. Sleeping water (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Why not put it to a vote? Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 19:23, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, let's... (BTW, regarding using the Putzger Historical Atlas as a source, why not use this map - http://www.maproom.org/00/01/present.php?m=0004) Gabhala (talk) 21:18, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
The e-Keltoi inline citation that you removed when making your "contribution" with out any inline citations yourself clearly states that Celtic settlements have antiquity in Iberia. I presume you removed the citation because it did not agree with your POV and synthesis from your sources:

PDF: http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_4/lorrio_zapatero_6_4.pdf

HTML http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_4/lorrio_zapatero_6_4.html Jembana (talk) 05:04, 8 August 2010 (UTC) PDF: http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_4/lorrio_zapatero_6_4.pdf

HTML http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_4/lorrio_zapatero_6_4.html

Yes, Yes, I know you didn't actually delete the citation - you just moved it to an irrelevent place - same deal. Jembana (talk) 12:30, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
The Putzger Historical Atlas, how old is it? About one hundred years?[12] pg 97 No escavations since then? no historical findings? Like for instance [13] or [14] pg 228-229 an easy map, and notice the Tartessian area.
"And for Iruna-Veleia, I don't see anywhere the "term" of oppida. "Worse", it seems that Egyptian hieroglyphs should have been found there. It is time for you to edit the page about the ancient Egyptians and to put a map including Northern Spain in the ancient Egyptian culture...Sleeping water (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)" Iruña-Veleia is the Basque region. The legend says Goídel Glas and Scota settled in north west Iberia, but who knows, some may have gone east.... instead of crossing the sea up north.
"The debate concerns the cultural print, essentially defined by the language of the majority people. Some Celtic dialects should have been spoken in Iberia ? Yes, I do not contest. But only by minority elites.Sleeping water (talk) 19:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)"
Great, Iberia?The whole of Iberia? Besides the Celtiberians there were the Celtici in Lusitania, the Celtici in the sowthwest, the Celtici in the north west and according to Eratosthenes, Gauls. You mean we have entire tribes composed of minority elites? And they had no confortable cars like the Iberians ?[15].
"Celticos a Celtiberos ex Lusitania advenisse manifestum est sacris, lingua, oppidorum vocabulis, quae cognominibus in Baetica distinguntur"~ Pliny the Elder. When they moved from Lusitania they seem to have taken their language with them. Besides their language it seems their oppidorum vocabulis was also relevant ,as well as their religion to distinguish them from the Iberians.


"Strabo has never written such a thing. He only mentioned the Celtiberian. Sleeping water (talk) 18:46, 4 August 2010 (UTC)" Not quite he also mentions the celtici not to say the gauls:
"Along with the happy lot of their country, the qualities of both gentleness and civility have come to the Turdetanians; and to the Celtic peoples, too, on account of their being neighbours to the Turdetanians, as Polybius has said, or else on account of their kinship; but less so the Celtic peoples, because for the most part they live in mere villages. And the present jointly-settled cities, Pax Augusta in the Celtic country, Augusta Emerita in the country of the Turdulians, Caesar-Augusta near Celtiberia,and some other settlements, manifest the change to the aforesaid civil modes of life. [16]
"They have only left traces : inscriptions, toponyms, archaeological material, more or less ephemeral kingdoms...exactly like Celts in Spain. Sleeping water (talk) 19:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)" Ephemeral kingdoms? From when till what date? They were first mentioned in V b.C by Herodotus, and that region was conquered by the end of the I b.C. . What is it you are talking about? Which were those ephemerial celtic kingdoms in Spain? They lasted longer in central europe after the roman conquest? By the way the gaulish corpus has how many words? Not to mention Lepontic or Noric. I got fed up of reading so much gibberish i am not going to comment on every senseless thing you wrote , but what is obvious your focus on the subject of changing maps: [[17]]
""French situation shows that the ancient Celtic culture disappears gradually as one approaches the south of Europe. The Celtiberians mentioned in the literature are probably the Iberians framed by a Celtic aristocracy'. So I think that the map should be changed, to show the real extension of the ancient Iberians (from the Garonne river and the whole of the Iberian Peninsula, maybe a part of Northern Africa)."" Iberians in northen Africa, hum.... quite funny, they found just some Iberian pots, iberian culture, or real Iberian kingdoms (with or without the celtic aristocracy)in Africa?Oppidium, Iberian language and chariots too?95.69.58.157 (talk) 05:24, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, good point about the old map proposed to be used by some - it doesn't account for the research done for a century since it was published.

Dbachmann's existing map is the best representation and should be kept for the following reasons: 1. It follows the wiki policy WP:secondary sources and follows secondary sources incorporating peer-reviewed research subject to editorial scrutiny for reliability such as Haywood, Koch's encyclopedia, Cunliffe's maps, Kruta's many maps plus many more accepted and reliable sources. 2. It makes no assumptions of unproved population movements which arrows suggest - who knows ? - the Celts spread may have been due to a trading network of multi-way interactions, not just a "hub and spoke" model - if you show arrows, you have to prove that this is the way it happened which may not be possible down to this level of detail. We can ascertain trade in goods archeaologically, e.g. Hallstatt with Etruscans via the Gollaseccans is well-attested but it is not evidence of mass migrations (as shown by the arrows you want to put). Jembana (talk) 12:30, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

"what I see in those maps, is that Spain is nor concerned by Hallstatt, nether by La Tène. In the last map, it is about "migrations", and Spain is drawn with orange, and not with blue. Why, according to you ? Is it not an indication that he considers himself that Spain is a particular and controversial case ? So, the three maps which should prove your statements just confirm in fact what I say from the beginning."
This looks like Confirmation Bias. The map "Halstatt Culture in Central Europe" clearly shows a blue line, which according to the key, signifies the 'influence of Halstatt by 500 BC' - a line which clearly extends of the area of the map to include Iberia. As for the orange shading on the other map, again looking at the map key indicates that it signifies 'Expansion by 400 BC' to distinguish from the blue, which represents 'Probable Celtic speaking area 6th Century BC'.
In any case, I think at this stage the consensus is clear that DBachmann's is the more appropriate map for the article. Time to move on...

Gabhala (talk) 14:26, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

"The Celtiberians mentioned in the literature are probably the Iberians framed by a Celtic aristocracy" the statement is wrong, there are hints about that in many classical authors (Appianus, Dyodorus Siculus followed by J. K. Zeuss in the 19th century) but modern scholarship considers the celtiberians as "celts who lived in the Iberic peninsula", having immigrated there between the 8th and 6th century during the Hallstatt period (and an earlier, more limited, presence around the 10th century is also very possible), see Francisco Villar

-Briga Toponyms in the Iberian Peninsula http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_15/garcia_alonso_6_15.html

-The Celts in Iberia: An Overview http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_4/lorrio_zapatero_6_4.html

http://www.celtiberia.net/imagftp/im226731922-toponimos%20-briga%20en%20Europa.jpg

http://www.celtiberia.net/imagftp/im654801154-toponimos%20-dunum%20en%20Europa.jpg

- Celtiberians: Problems and Debates http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_8/burillo_6_8.html

Figure 5. Distribution of the Celtic languages (after F. Burillo 1998: Fig. 35). http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_8/images/fig05_600.jpg

Cunibertus (talk) 09:54, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, very good list of sources there - another good source who explains this well is:

The Celts in Portugal by Teresa Judice Gamito - a really excellent tour de force on the antiquity of Hallstatt Celts in Iberia:

http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_11/gamito_6_11.html Jembana (talk) 11:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)




"The e-Keltoi inline citation that you removed when making your "contribution" with out any inline citations yourself clearly states that Celtic settlements have antiquity in Iberia."

Already answered. The debate is not about Celtic presence, but about the Celtic culture print in Spain.Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"PDF: http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_4/lorrio_zapatero_6_4.pdf"

I have read the 65 pages, though I don't understand why you have put the same source three times. In almost all the pages, this link tries to put in relief that archaeological evidences show that Celts should have left some prints in Spain. Who doubts about it ? But the links is less affirmative than you. Just some quotes :

  • "Analysis of the literary sources reveals an enormously complex Celtiberia whose geographic scope and ethnic composition are difficult to define and substantially changed during the process of the Roman conquest and subsequent Romanization." (p.16)
  • "Even though literary sources do not talk specifically about each of the ingredients contained within the mélange, we could hazard a guess that the Celtic components would include their language" (p.29). Can we make assertions from a "hazard" ?
  • "The issue can be summed up as follows: The Castro Culture has its origins in the Late Bronze Age, and there is evidence for continuity and an indigenous evolution throughout the Early Iron Age." (p.55)
  • "This situation stigmatizes the issue of Celticization as a legitimate subject of academic research, making matters worse by leaving it wide open to manipulation in the hands of pseudo-researchers and Celtophiles with more enthusiasm than intelligence or scholarly training." (p.61)

This source does not say anything else : the Celtic presence is attested by some toponyms (controversial though), some archaeological material, but according to this source, no one knows which was their cultural print. This matches the conclusions I have posted : we have only Celtic traces and not attested Celtic culture in Spain. Therefore, the link makes some curious conclusions : because the archaeological material found is too few or too controversial, we should change all the scenario of the Celticization in Europe (p.65). Personaly, as many searchers, I would simply argue that Celtic print is almost well known in Europe, and the Iberic case shows rather cultural roots in pre-indo-european cultures than in the Celtic world.

I just ask you something : in which way Spanish situation differs of the SW France according to the sources ? I remind you that Toulouse has been found by Celts, and celtic toponyms are far more numerous in SW France than in Spain.Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"Yes, Yes, I know you didn't actually delete the citation - you just moved it to an irrelevent place - same deal."

And you, you are becoming boring by giving since two weeks always the same strawman argument ("Celtic traces are attested"). I have posted about 20 sources which show you that traces do not signify culture. Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"The Putzger Historical Atlas, how old is it? About one hundred years?"

Are you really blind ? 1981. This source is used in the page "Germanic peoples". If you are too lazy to read the talk page, there are many other hobbies, you know (fishing, football, chess...).Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"Iruña-Veleia is the Basque region. The legend says Goídel Glas and Scota settled in north west Iberia, but who knows, some may have gone east.... instead of crossing the sea up north."

What is it supposed to mean ? My point was that if some Egyptian hieroglyphs should have been found in NW Spain, it would not be sufficient to give to this region an ancient Egyptian culture. Same thing for Celtic inscriptions in Spain.Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"Great, Iberia?The whole of Iberia? Besides the Celtiberians there were the Celtici in Lusitania, the Celtici in the sowthwest, the Celtici in the north west and according to Eratosthenes, Gauls. You mean we have entire tribes composed of minority elites? "

No. The "entire tribes" were composed of pre-indo-european peoples, like in SW France. The names given by some authors do not mean anything. French wear a Germanic tribe name, while they speak a Romance language. See above C/ too. I repeat and repeat always the same things...Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"When they moved from Lusitania they seem to have taken their language with them. Besides their language it seems their oppidorum vocabulis was also relevant ,as well as their religion to distinguish them from the Iberians".

Like the Wisigoths in Spain later or the Lombardians in Italy. But they did not print their culture. Your turn round : some Celtic dialects are attested in Iberia, but were not majority.Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"Along with the happy lot of their country, the qualities of both gentleness and civility have come to the Turdetanians; and to the Celtic peoples, too, on account of their being neighbours to the Turdetanians, as Polybius has said, or else on account of their kinship; but less so the Celtic peoples, because for the most part they live in mere villages. And the present jointly-settled cities, Pax Augusta in the Celtic country, Augusta Emerita in the country of the Turdulians, Caesar-Augusta near Celtiberia,and some other settlements, manifest the change to the aforesaid civil modes of life."
  • My contradictor's original statement was, according to Strabon, that the Celtic component should have been majority among the Celtiberian. I do not see such a statement in your quote.
  • For the interpretation of "Celtic country", see above C/Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"Ephemeral kingdoms? From when till what date? "

Read properly. It is a comparison with the Germanics. The point was that the Celtic print can be compared to the Germanics who have left traces, and among these last, "more or less ephemeral kingdoms" in France, Spain or Northern Africa.Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"By the way the gaulish corpus has how many words?"

Who cares ?Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"I got fed up of reading so much gibberish"

If you are fed up, get out and don't soil the page with your stupid comments. Or read the sources on the talk page, you could become more intelligent.Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"i am not going to comment on every senseless thing you wrote"

So, what are you doing here, and who do you think you are to come here, without reading the talk page, and making arrogant comments ? If you have no argument or sourced contribution, get the hell out of here (and I am polite).Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"but what is obvious your focus on the subject of changing maps"

Not only the map, the text too. This is the principle of wiki : a free encyclopedia. If it does not please you, just create your own blog about the subject, and leave.Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"Iberians in northen Africa, hum.... quite funny, they found just some Iberian pots, iberian culture, or real Iberian kingdoms (with or without the celtic aristocracy)in Africa?Oppidium, Iberian language and chariots too?"

The funniest people that I meet are the ignorant like you. "Hum"...the iberians were not indo-european peoples, as the peoples who lived in Northern Africa. Do you only know that Marocco is at less than 10 miles from Spain? And there are some studies which make the link between Iberians, Basques and antic Northern African cultures, maybe a heritage of the Neolithic waves ; other studies which doubt. No one knows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic

http://www.euskomedia.org/PDFAnlt/munibe/1988129137.pdf

But above all, "hum"...read some books, or at least a single one in your life before trying sarcasms. Only after this, you will be able to think you are intelligent, arrogant Portuguese. You are just a Celtic wannabe. Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"It follows the wiki policy WP:secondary sources and follows secondary sources incorporating peer-reviewed research subject to editorial scrutiny for reliability such as Haywood, Koch's encyclopedia, Cunliffe's maps, Kruta's many maps plus many more accepted and reliable sources."

Like the map I have purposed, but with less controversial points.Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"It makes no assumptions of unproved population movements which arrows suggest - who knows ? - the Celts spread may have been due to a trading network of multi-way interactions, not just a "hub and spoke" model"

This is the problem. Areas show distribution of antic Celtic peoples, which does not match to the sources. Arrows could show the nuances : Celtic culture in a central core, and migrations to peripheral regions, but with unknown or superficial impact.Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"-Briga Toponyms in the Iberian Peninsula"

Already discussed. See above and source D/ n° 10. Once again (I repeat and repeat the same things), toponymy is an indication of a presence, not a proof of the dominant language or culture.Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"The map "Halstatt Culture in Central Europe" clearly shows a blue line, which according to the key, signifies the 'influence of Halstatt by 500 BC' - a line which clearly extends of the area of the map to include Iberia."

Maybe for this map, I did not dig. I just see that for Haywood, Spain is not in the same case as Gaule or Britain. Nevertheless, a lot of sources (see above) contest that Iberia should be included in Hallstatt or La Tène (this last is even not sure to be a Celtic feature).


"In any case, I think at this stage the consensus is clear that DBachmann's is the more appropriate map for the article. Time to move on..."

More exactly, the map which seems to win the poll. I did not know that the wiki articles were the result of a "political" game. Next time, I will buy some votes, or try to become administrator.

Having said that, if Spanish or Portuguese people want absolutely to claim "Celtic" roots, it has more to do with politics than science. Who knows, Jembana, maybe you will find a study which will permit you to push further east the Celtic border, including finally Catalonia...However, don't forget to draw a new map including Egypt, Balkans, Romania and Greece.Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"the statement is wrong, there are hints about that in many classical authors (Appianus, Dyodorus Siculus followed by J. K. Zeuss in the 19th century) but modern scholarship considers the celtiberians as "celts who lived in the Iberic peninsula""

Stop it, please. Already answered above, again and again...Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"The Celts in Portugal by Teresa Judice Gamito - a really excellent tour de force on the antiquity of Hallstatt Celts in Iberia"

You could not chose a better expression : a TOUR DE FORCE ("French expression meaning an exceptional creative achievement, a particularly adroit manoeuvre or a difficult feat - source : Wiki...).Sleeping water (talk) 18:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Please refrain from personal attacks. Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 19:37, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, especially since it was another editor that wrote most of what he commnented on was definitely NOT posted by me - it was posted by someone before my post if you care to look "Special:Contributions/95.69.58.157|95.69.58.157" who definitely was not me, but that begs the point - why do you engage in such tactics ? It seems the peer-reviewed articles which WAS my post are inconvenient for you. Jembana (talk) 21:42, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Have a look at this page Sleeping water, and then please reconsider your layout habits and what would be a feasible amount of text. I am sure you are coherent somewhere, but from where everybody else is looking, your rant style is just extremely hard to follow. So calm down, and keep it tight. Trigaranus (talk) 21:09, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

if Spanish or Portuguese people want absolutely to claim "Celtic" roots, it has more to do with politics than science - really portuguese (lusitanians) were an indoeuropean people who preceded the celts in Spain, of course they were later at least partially celticized (by proximity exchange) - but in Spain there were at least 4 major groups (iberians, tartessians, basques and celtiberians) and for sure the only really celtic and indoeuropean group was the celtiberian (the tartessians were influenced/partially assimilated but originally were a clearly distinct group), afaik Cunibertus (talk) 21:17, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


"Yes, especially since it was another editor that wrote most of what he commnented on was definitely NOT posted by me"

If you read well, the "rude" comments were not adressed to you, but to the Portuguese IP-user.Sleeping water (talk) 13:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


"It seems the peer-reviewed articles which WAS my post are inconvenient for you."

You want probably make some provocations, like often :

  • I have given about 20 academical sources, but you don't want to read them
  • I have answered to almost all your objections and sources, your last source included. But you behave like all these answers had never existed, and you have almost never answered to my questions, arguments and sources.
  • You only make the same strawman argument since 15 days : "there are some evidences of Celtic presence in Iberia, so inhabitants of Iberia were Celtic culture and people".Sleeping water (talk) 13:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


"please reconsider your layout habits and what would be a feasible amount of text."

The text that I had posted was nuanced and expressed clearly the positions of academical authors, with the exactly quotes. What do you want more of ?Sleeping water (talk) 13:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


"your rant style is just extremely hard to follow."

"Rant" ? You continue to behave like if there was not any talk page. The postulate is very clear. Just a summarize :

  • the presence of Celtic tribes in Iberia is attested by archaeological material
  • but this Celtic archaeological material is very thin and controversial : no chariots, no real Celtic oppidum, no druidic culture attested, not much toponyms, even compared to SW France (considered as not Celtic)...in fact, just some inscriptions, dishes and weapons - see the sources.
  • Names given to some tribes do not prove anything (see Lombardy, Burgundy, Andalusia...).
  • many authors contest that Iberia should have ever known any Celtic culture. See the sources that I have posted. Idem for the most of Italy and Galatia.
  • conclusion 1 : due to this thin heritage and according to those numerous authors, we cannot present a map titled "distribution of Celtic peoples" or "languages" including Iberia or Italy, since Celts were not the dominant culture in these regions. Outside a central core where majority Celtic culture is really attested (most of France, British Isles, Southern and Central Germany...), Celts have formed only scattered tribes and minorities ; same schema for the Germanics : outside the central Germanic core (Germany, England, Holland, Scandinavia), they will form only scattered tribes or minorities .
  • conclusion 2 : du to this thin heritage and due to those numerous authors, we must add a paragraph establishing that Celtic culture is not really attested in Spain and contested by many authors.

They are not original conclusions or researches : I had exactly quoted the sources. Where is it so hard to follow ? Sleeping water (talk) 13:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


"really portuguese (lusitanians) were an indoeuropean people who preceded the celts in Spain, of course they were later at least partially celticized (by proximity exchange)"

No. Lusitanian is just the name given by Strabon to some tribes living in Portugal in antic times. No one can say which language they spoke, but according to many sources, they were probably pre-indo-european peoples dominated by Celtic aristocracies. Are Andalusian peoples Germanic because they wear a Germanic tribe name (Vandals) ? I repeat again and again the same things...Sleeping water (talk) 13:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Lusitanian .... No one can say which language they spoke as we have scripts from them apparently modern linguists know very well which sort of languages they spoke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusitanians#Language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusitanian_language#Classification_and_related_languages

Cunibertus (talk) 13:33, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I have already answered (oh, about 50 times...) : some inscriptions are not a proof of a Celtic culture : runnic inscriptions in Normandy, Ulfila's texts in Balkans and Ukraine do not mean that those regions were Germanic culture ; Latin texts in Medieval Germany do not mean that German people spoke latin...I always repeat the same things.--Sleeping water (talk) 14:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


"and for sure the only really celtic and indoeuropean group was the celtiberian (the tartessians were influenced/partially assimilated but originally were a clearly distinct group)"

For the sixtieth time, no. The concept of Celtiberian has no sense in its own, a people cannot speak two languages in the same time. According to the source C/, "Celtiberian" concept is probably a grammatical form given to Iberian people living in the regions which were dominated by the Celtic power, like Celtoligurian people were Ligurian in the same situation...Sleeping water (talk) 13:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

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